Aleyesu: Sands of Time [REL]

[Rickler]

Map is finish! I've named it "Aleyesu: Sands of Time". Haven't been able to properly test it with multiple players yet.

Spawn

Open mid area

a connection cave

North part of the map ( although in hammer it's actually south, but with the direction of the sun it has to be south)

leading into the labyrinth

ice dungeon

fire dungeon

air dungeon, semi random lightning strikes coming from clouds

keledros's time chamber

keledros being brought back from the past, i can't get him to spawn forward :\

Strange anomalies in time have been known to occur in these parts. Dangerous monsters from the past appear at random.

spider cave

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Holy hell

This looks awesome. Rickler, later today I can host a betatest server.

 

[villager]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Map looks amazing... although that Xen portal effect looks really out of place, but it's probably the picture.

 

[The Man In Black]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Have. My. Babies.



We should make him do Badlands >_>

 

[Crow]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

@.@ holy sex.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

If I had the name earlier in the month ye might have actually been able to play it on [FN] now. (Not that I've had the chance to look it over in anycase)

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Holy shit.

Brush/face count?

 

[HumanSteak]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

G.forest patch#2?

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

I'm going to set my server up to run a betatest now, if anyone is interested.

 

[villager]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

I is :O

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Server is up RIGHT NOW!

We will be sure to give you a detailed critique, Rickler.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Screw studying for an organic synthesis exam - this map looks unbelievably good and I'm joining right now

 

[Belmont]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

I have to agree that this map looks incredible!

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Okay, we just finished.

THIS MAP IS F*CKING AWESOME!
Your work is amazing.

However, it needs its own set of scripts. Slithar refused to die, you put the Ice Bone Lord in(Which is a high level boss), Keledros is an intermediate boss, and so on.

Thothie, I HIGHLY recommend you try to script up the elder elementals, as well as greater versions of those that don't have them yet.

A time mage boss would be f*cking epic, as well.

I almost want to make a time themed armor or weapon just for this map , it's THAT good.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

I just beat up most of the map with Sabre, Shuriken, villager, Meatwad and Durak, and at some point in the spider caves, the server crashed because somebody tried to join & download the map.

Anyway:
Not even god can map this good.
It's downright amazing! The brushwork, the detail, the layout, the sheer size, the variation, it's perfect. This has to be the best map MS: C map I have ever played.

Suggestions for improvement: you really need custom bosses. You should ask Thothie if he can script you something nice to replace [that ice boss]. You should also ask Thothie to make you a fire boss instead of [those final fire monsters]. Also, the lightning boss isn't very strong at all. You need something way meaner there. Maybe ask Thothie again
Keledros somehow vanished halfway when we were trying to kill his second form. Must've been some bug.
And I suggest you replace Slithar with... well something else, I'm not really all that creative, but you could ask Thothie (again) for a new monster.

I think that your map would be a perfect place for elementals. Currently this game only has summoned air elementals (which you actually have in your map), normal/greater ice elementals, and normal fire elementals.
There are models for greater/elder fire elementals, elder ice elementals, normal/greater/elder air elementals and normal/greater/elder earth elementals.

Thothie probably has assloads of stuff to do, as usual, but I am convinced that elementals would fit perfectly in your map. If you feel like it/have time for it and if your map has room for it, make an earth elemental room, and then bug Thothie to make some scripts.

Even if you don't add elementals: this map has taken the "my favorite map" crown from daragoth, simply because it's so awesome, it's almost unbelievable.

Please make more

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

DOUBLE POST:

I am going to host another session of this, within the next 20 minutes. If you wish to join, PLEASE download the map before joining, someone downloading crashed the server ><

 

[Thothie]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

BEAUTIFUL map, but I suppose it's my job to point out the issues it has. Some of these will have to be fixed before an [FN] release can be approved:

• WAY TOO MANY SPLOITY MONSTER CLIPS
- There are WAY too many places where monsters are effectively trapped in boxes, and players can just projectile them to death for free XP&cash. Ye need to free your monsters. (Of particular note: the young Bludgeon at castle entrance, the cobras, the scorpians, orcs… Pretty much everything.)

- Don’t use monster clips to coral monsters into a particular area you want to keep them in when the players can pass through that same area freely, rather, don’t spawn them until the player needs to deal with them, and don’t give them multiple lives. If you really want the monsters to recur, use a trigger_multiple with a very long reset delay.

• Lotta rampy bits monsters will have trouble with
- One way to deal with these is rig monster-clip staircases. This will prevent monsters from standing at weird angles, and slipping away in laggy situations.

• Gotta few places where players can get stuck
- Granted, mostly on cliffs where they were supposed to die anyways
- The monster clips on this cliffs may not be dependable as they don’t all go down to the ground – monster’s navigate by their feet, so a monsterclip that doesn’t reach the ground may not stop them.

• Your beams are damaging the Bludgeons when they port in
- Turn off the damage on env_laser (damaging monsters so they die easier is not allowed – if ye need weaker monsters, I can design variants.)

• icedungeon spawns are painfully slow

• Ice queen is completely exploitable in the ice dungeon, yer going to have to give her some head-room so she can follow players through the labyrinth, and remove any monsterclips that maybe in her way
- If giving her head room is too difficult/not an option, ye may try using some of the winter wolves instead: either multiple monsters/wolf_ice or a single monsters/wolf_ice_alpha (although _alpha is a 40+ mini-boss, and maybe a bit much for this map.)

• k_cult treasure chest likely needs not to appear/be accessible until the k_cult guys are slain, if you want it to contain anything worth snatching and running.

• Shahaddar Orcs are more native to the desert environment, but mayhaps a bit mean for the outer areas. I can setup the Shahaddar Archers for ye, and as for the foot soldiers, the lesser ones (monsters/sorc_recruit) aren’t too mean, at if they get out of hand, ye can simply use less of them. (They also have no “drunk” attacks.)

• Keledros – any group of players who can take the Ice Queen, Bludgeons, Etins, etc. will pwn Keledros so fast he’ll barely have time to say “Please do stay for some...ga…” – Venevus would likely make a better final boss, although +atholo maybe a bit much. I can rig him to recognize your map and not go through the atholo sequence, and rename him to anything ye like at the same time.

I could nitpick and point out you have an overlapping brush texture or two, but I don’t *think* any of them are causing mass lag, and I think they are in the dark where they won’t be noticed (didn’t really check, wouldn’t notice on this rig.) Wouldn’t mention it, but it was odd to see them on such a well designed map.

I dunno if you had intended a lightning boss for the lightning chamber. I can setup an greater air elemental if so desired, as elemental_air0 is designed as escort, and dies easily. (Reminds me, I gotta optimize his beams…)

I think there’s an opening in Bloodrose where this can go, although if you’d rather, we can also make it part of Aluhandra desert. Either way, it’d be nice to have some future transition exits leading from this map as well.

Beautiful map in all other respects. Tis about time someone came around to keep Crow on his toes.

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

It's starting to generate no phree edicks, with more people.

Thothie, ye might wanna give it your lightsource optimization treatment.

 

[Thothie]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

It's a very big map with a lot of entities... I'd hate to say "cut it in two" - but I dunno how many light sources there are to replace. There are a lot of sprites...

My advice is to use lighted textures as light sources, rather than sprite torches, whereever you can. I'm sure Rickler knows how to use light textures. If you use custom ones, please send the lights.rad entries along with your source.

 

[Sabre]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Maybe join our test and tell him yerself

 

[Thothie]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Meh, I'm wireless right now, I'll lag like mad and probably drop, but I can try.

But yeah, really need to reduce the entity count on this map somehow... Subbing sprites for lighted textures easiest way...

...also, to fix monster spawns jamming (I need to check), if yer using trigger_counters, count when the monster spawns, rather than when it dies. Tis either that, or use unlimited lives, and just killtarget the monster spawn when you move onto the next.

 

[Rickler]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

Thanks for the input guys. I guess there is still a lot of work to be done before it's playable. I might have to split the map in two because of free edicts error ><

 

[Thothie]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

I hope not. :/ I wouldn't depend on it, but the model consolidation should help us a bit in the edict department...

Main thing is to get rid of anything animated, anything that has to think every frame to update to the clients where it is to keep them in sync. (beams, spirtes, dyanmic lights, env_models etc.) Again, the #1 edict offender in MSC maps are usually torches - but at least you didn't use the sprite with the most frames possible on yours. Sprites with the play-once flag I'm still not sure about - but you maybe able to keep them, with any luck.

Also, as per in the tutorials, consolidate like-rendered ents and monsterclips on a room-by-room basis.

Monsters, of course, eat more edicts and resources than anything - so if you rigged it so those scorps in the desert didn't spawn infinitely, but rather, had 1 life, and spawned when you crossed a trigger_muliple with a very long delay, you wouldn’t have extra critters running around where your players weren’t.

I noticed the generic snake lord script ain't working right for ye, I'll fix that... Again, if ye want more elementals, gimme heads up. I think I can whip up a lightning one real quick - but I think yer cold and fire rooms are fairly well populated (although I can tweak up some sort of lesser fire-reaver if you want to use one of those too.)

 

[Rickler]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

WAY TOO MANY SPLOITY MONSTER CLIPS
- There are WAY too many places where monsters are effectively trapped in boxes, and players can just projectile them to death for free XP&cash. Ye need to free your monsters. (Of particular note: the young Bludgeon at castle entrance, the cobras, the scorpians, orcs… Pretty much everything.)

I was wondering if you could change scorpions to act more like boars. Right now they just flood to one area and pill up. They will even attempt to follow a player, who is no were near them, by running at walls. Which is why I had the clips as such, so they didn't clump together.

• Lotta rampy bits monsters will have trouble with
- One way to deal with these is rig monster-clip staircases. This will prevent monsters from standing at weird angles, and slipping away in laggy situations.

I'm at max clips, I can't add stairs :\

Your beams are damaging the Bludgeons when they port in
- Turn off the damage on env_laser (damaging monsters so they die easier is not allowed – if ye need weaker monsters, I can design variants.)

Well they are being ripped through time

Keledros – any group of players who can take the Ice Queen, Bludgeons, Etins, etc. will pwn Keledros so fast he’ll barely have time to say “Please do stay for some...ga…” – Venevus would likely make a better final boss, although +atholo maybe a bit much. I can rig him to recognize your map and not go through the atholo sequence, and rename him to anything ye like at the same time.

I have yet to see the venevus model so I was unsure if he was an undead wizard or w/e

I could nitpick and point out you have an overlapping brush texture or two, but I don’t *think* any of them are causing mass lag, and I think they are in the dark where they won’t be noticed (didn’t really check, wouldn’t notice on this rig.) Wouldn’t mention it, but it was odd to see them on such a well designed map.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. A func_wall or sumthing is sharing the same plane as a world brush?

 

[CrazyMonkeyDude]

Re: Aleyesu: Sands of Time [completed]

• Lotta rampy bits monsters will have trouble with
- One way to deal with these is rig monster-clip staircases. This will prevent monsters from standing at weird angles, and slipping away in laggy situations.

Odd, I saw a monster slide down a set of stairs on Ara a bit ago during lag (which is about every 10 seconds on my server, especially if a monster spawns... even right next to me >_>)