[wG*Swiiitan]

I will talk a bit on how i believe the Map Designing in UrTHD should/need to look like to gain the Attention it needs. And also to Experience it Full out.
Urban Terror has changed a lot since it's release in 2001. Can you imagine we didn't even have Wall Jumps back then?
What i am trying to tell you is that over the years the Movement of the game has begun to play a larger role.
The Wall Jumping, Floor Gliding, Speed gaining Fast paced Gameplay has made Urban Terror the game it is today.

It is those features that makes this game stand out from the rest of the First Person Shooters in the genre.
And it is those features that gives Urban Terror a seriously great Potential, IF and i once again say: IF, it is made right.

What Urban Terror 4.1 and 4.2 Lacks In my honest opinion is well designed maps that takes advantage of what this great game has to offer.
It is THAT, Urban Terror HD need to change in order to Succeed!

Currently Urban Terror could be compared to Spending your whole time at one Attraction, when there is a whole amusement park to Explore!

Things in need of improvement for Urban Terror HD:

• Well placed jumps: - Smart, well placed jumps in the maps that gives you the ability to move around fast. Not only on the ground!
  (It could be Statues, Street lamps, Signs, Buses, you name it!)
  
  
• Vertical Gameplay: - The game needs more vertical variation in their maps. Ramelle and Uptown is good examples, though it need to be taken further.
  (looking at these flat maps we currently have make my stomach turn.)
  
  
• Casual Routes - Make sure that the maps has routes meant for casual players, without making them feel that they are too left out.
  (Current maps is mostly casual so you know how to do that.)
  
  
• Professional Routes - Make sure that the maps have awesome jumps that will give the player a flow you would never get in a game like ex: Counter Strike.
  (After all that is the reason we play Urban Terror, aint it?)
  
  
• Scaling - Scaling plays an important role in UrT. Tight areas kill the flow but there is also a need to find a balance of: Enough Room & Empty.

Final Thoughts:

A balanced map is a good map.
A balanced map, mixed with simple and pro jumps, is a great map

The maps should feel like a giant Playground for you to explore!
It needs to feel fluid and alive.

A map in the right direction is Ghosttown, it may not be best map but it showed us how a normal map could work out with a huge amount of jumps, we NEED more of these!
(To be honest the map tend to be a little bit to tight at times though)
UrTHD need more of these.


Please tell me i am not the only one feeling this? Feel free to leave a comment below!



Thanks for reading!

//Swiiitan

[rayne2]

Excellent read, i expect a map built in unreal engine by the OP that conforms to all these "rules" to be released soon.

[<PWC>YAY5637]

These are good points, but making a fluid enjoyable map satisfying them is obviously so hard that there is really only two around.
How did FS manage to build ghosttown? any tricks that arent known by the map community?

I dont think UE4 changes anything about map design (levolution anyone?)

[FS Mr.Yeah]

I have to agree with every point in this thread and yet maps that seem to fit those (especially Ghosttown) seem to be way underplayed. Maps that provide much less verticality and could be played the same way they're currently being played in UrT now in any modern mulitplayer realistic war simulation fps are more popular. I've seen people stating uptown shouldn't be played in any serious league, but did not develop their point as to explain why it shouldn't be.

Is verticality a bad thing nowadays? I fail to see why.

[Nounou]

Community has been used for years to a certain model which was unintentionaly imposed not only by the competitive players, but by the current engine which doesn't allow too much fantasy or too much players in a decent and credible environment.
Old mapping style habits were kept to keep it intense and dynamic on a 6v6 or 5v5 gameplay and also because as you said wall jumping and slide were not existing before so these models were the best choices to fit better the old gameplay.
Although it doesn't really answer the question of current flatness we have in urt compared to the aerial gameplay it can propose, today. I've been told many times that a vertical area wasn't greatly handled by engine.

Maybe it's easier to switch from abbey to any other FPS than any other FPS to uptown.
There's no lemming thing in quake so verticality is very friendly in there, like many other FPS that use verticality.

I dont think GT will ever be played really. It was started because of the result of the pub community getting smaller and smaller and the logical choice of her to stick to the popular classics, which i and a lot of players are bored of; Plus it was a good opportunity to force community to download a third party map of 110 mo. I never played any competitions or pcw or anything like this until last month, i've always been into massive slaughtery servers and third party maps and started this map to try to get together beginners you meet in pubs and jumpers the way uptown used to do. Many newbies have learned bases of jump and what Urban Terror really is with Uptown. There's even cushion (to avoid breaking legs) on specific parts of GT which makes verticality very friendly if you know where it is, to make it more casual/popular, link up & down. I'd love to see this in uptown; it's a good way to make the game faster on bigger maps.

It's a shame that the jump maps tracks are not that much reproduced in current maps. But actually it's done in third party mapping which is way too much underrated if it doesn't have the competitive layout and which we tend to forget if the habits don't fit in. I know a bit of the rules established in competitive mapping and automatically placed ghosttown into a non competitive road just to avoid a lot of URT's competitive restrictions. But even before the release it was already too late to make it public, regarding what this map propose without considering it's a bad or good map, because maybe it would have failed with 4000 players too.

That's why there is a poor attempt to make it viable for ts, after final layout was done; aerial/opened red area of GT is unaccessible in this mode. I'm not sure it suits TS gameplay though, it was just based on assumptions since last two years I've mainly saw competitive players on TS pubs, playing tiny flat maps all the time; If ported to UDK the map would be faster and would maybe have a chance next to CTF competitive classics with a bit less places to hide and the center of the map wide opened as it was done first (no hipster club, just a straight path from crossroad to bridge) which is something that would fit better competition for example. It was permiting much more fantasy and freedom, less blocking, and caping a flag in 6 sec; It was an inevitable bad choice to cut the map in two halfs but was mandatory for optimisation purpose. So we currently have "flat" maps also because of the engine i think. Not every hardware can compile a map like GT (personnal experience). Older (but not bad) computers i was using to compile way simpler maps were crashing all the time. Now & mostly because of that the GT jumps are too dirigiste and linear. And the rest is way too narrow for fast jumpers aswell.

It would nice if both directions were kept, this one is the underrated one which uptown represent and promote very well. This is the only thing that makes urt unique next to the hundred other FPS. Idk why uptown isn't played much in competition, maybe BOOBS have pissed too much people on it. hehe.

..uh sry this is very long

[strayA#Pez]

the reason why i couldn't stand uptown in any game remotely competitive is that jumping doesn't necessarily give you an advantage. Most of the times its in fact the people that only do simple jumps and concentrate on shooting that win on uptown. Yes the jumps are extremely fun and a good challenge, but the results of being able to do them is limited because half way through a jump you can just get hit in the leg which leads to a lemming and frustration.

The way the game is played i don't see a place for heaps of vertically designed maps, perhaps a few for pubs, but not competitive.

[FS HappyDay]

Pez, on 29 May 2014 - 07:40 AM, said:

the reason why i couldn't stand uptown in any game remotely competitive is that jumping doesn't necessarily give you an advantage. Most of the times its in fact the people that only do simple jumps and concentrate on shooting that win on uptown.

Good point, I noticed that too. If you want a good score on uptown you should avoid the big jumps because they give away your position and your movement is very predictable while in the air. I don't think this is an issue though. It just means competitive players move a bit slower and when you play casually you can jump a lot and have fun. I don't know if there could even be a map where even competitive players prefer doing lots of jumps since it always has some disadvantages.

[KarlMariaSeeberg]

i could start arguing when reading some of your posts ... but in the end it boils down

to urt being developed for ue4 an engine that from what i know so far can be far superior when it comes to movement than the good old quake engine ..

to urt having an emphasis on movement/ jumping

to the current state of what fps look like (titanfall, and thingy .. and thingy.. furthermore thingy)

based on that it's hardly imaginable for urt to take a step back and become the cs/ red orchestra of ue4...

more vertical gameplay/ jumping is inevitable... hurray to that!

[FS Mr.Yeah]

Nounou, on 29 May 2014 - 02:24 AM, said:

There's no lemming thing in quake so verticality is very friendly in there, like many other FPS that use verticality.

You never cratered in Quake3, did you?
Although fall damage in Quake is actually much less important than UrT's when falling from same heights (in the name of 'realism' i suppose).
I can see this as a reason vertical gameplay is much more encouraged in Quake and alikes than in Urban Terror.

But having this incredible freedom of vertical movement as opposed to other games and deter its use with a high fall damage, doesn't seem right to me.

[tupp]

If anyone has played the Z9 human/zombie mode back in 4.1, I found that my jumping skills improved vastly.

This is because zombies chase humans and zombies that moved the fastest got the most humans, and the fastest humans 'usually' killed the most zombies. (usually because some maps could just be campfests).

Maybe zombie mode doesn't really fit into urt's future plans, maybe it does, but I found that it provided an interesting way to play the game that focused a lot more on team tactics, trickery, stealth, and of course, movement.

The only things I didn't like about zombie mode was the ability for humans to camp up high in really safe places, and zombies to camp in really cramped, small places.

maps like casa were perfect for the mode because there aren't really any 'safe' spots for zombies or humans on that map.