Ventilation made good, you probably won't recognize much. The yellow pipes remain as well as the 'water' pipes that used to be underneath, visible to the left. Under the floor is crawlable for skulks making this a very holdable hive for Aliens.
Will ventilation still have bare rock exposed? That's part of what made it iconic for me.
Ventilation made good, you probably won't recognize much. The yellow pipes remain as well as the 'water' pipes that used to be underneath, visible to the left. Under the floor is crawlable for skulks making this a very holdable hive for Aliens.
Will ventilation still have bare rock exposed? That's part of what made it iconic for me.
Some areas we are trying to keep as close to the original while attempting to make it our own while other areas have needed a complete overhaul and I imagine most people have noticed we have had to add a few extra rooms, for the moment it's all just grey box and it's still subject to change depending on how the play-tests go, so while some parts of the map you might not recognise it helps to remember that it's still just a grey box for the time being.
Thats true, but you should consider its because everytime they say they are actively working on it... and months are elapsing.
They should just say: "Hey, we are working from time to time on it. We dont know if it will ever be finished because YEARS are gone since the first post, so expect nothing."
That would be probably the truth and nobody would expect anything. Its just the "we are (always) hard working on it."
I think this is widely regarded as understood. However, 2 years seems excessive to still be in gray box, and untested by probably a lot of people who could be very helpful. Consider the many many many thousands of people who could have had the opportunity to play this map and who probably wanted to play this map for nostalgic reasons who will probably never install ns2 again at this point in time.
It's awesome that it's coming along, but it's also a bummer in a way. Having laid claim to this map has obviously prevented anybody else from wanting to take the project of a hera on... for almost 2 years. And who knows how many more months before they even make it playable for the rest of us plebs.
Yes maps take a long time, and I understand this is something we could otherwise not have at all, but it's disappointing how many people have been looking forward to this for so long, and the sad fact that maybe around 800 people will even have to opportunity to play it. And that's not saying that they all will (so many customs that have been around a while that I've never even found a server to play em on.)
I suppose in retrospect, I think it would have been nice for them to let the community know that it had not been worked on for such a long time at the point that they knew they couldn't work on it, and maybe offered up their work for other community mappers to take over. I know it's their baby, but this is a map that probably everybody has been anxious for for just too long.
Don't get me wrong, I'm stoked. But it's sort of a hollow excitement anymore, as I am beginning to let my ns2 urges wane in favor of enjoying things IRL.
Ahhh real life - what a beautiful and terrible thing.
I feel very stupid for asking this question, but what are brushes, actually?
Brushes is how maps USED to be constructed in Quake, Half-life, quake II and many other games.
A brush is a convex object defined by a number of planes; most often a rectangular block, but it can be any convex shape, like a cylinder, a prism, a pyramid etc. Convex means that if you shot a "ray" through the brush from any angle it will enter the brush exactly once and exit the brush exactly once.
Any concave object is built from multiple brushes instead of multiple polygons. A concave object is something like cup, from some direction there is an "indentation" somewhere.
When the map is compiled, the sides of the brush that are not visible get discarded, and you end up with an number of polygons, w_polys, that the engine can render.
I'm with you guys on the hera situation. I also think, we should have been able to help test it, much much, sooner. There's so many brilliant minds hidden in this community, that it no doubt could have ironed out things a bit sooner, if the map was more accesible to everyone.
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
Two guys running around on the map isn't even close to a complete game test.
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
Two guys running around on the map isn't even close to a complete game test.
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
Two guys running around on the map isn't even close to a complete game test.
Bots can do the job. It's not like humans of course but it helps doing a lot of debugging and see if something is just wrong or not.
And i agree with 2cough. This game needs more map. It's better to have 10 maps unbalanced than 5-6 still unbalanced.
I've seen so many so called mapper, designer, artists, and such who join a group / project and never do anything. These guys are pro artist at idling.
I know it can be difficult to create something for many reasons. But just joining and being idle isn't a thing to do. They usually end up making the PR more than anything (In which case is gonna be more and more lying)...
If you start something make sure it's gonna be out someday. 2 years is a little long.
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
Two guys running around on the map isn't even close to a complete game test.
Bots can do the job. It's not like humans of course but it helps doing a lot of debugging and see if something is just wrong or not.
And i agree with 2cough. This game needs more map. It's better to have 10 maps unbalanced than 5-6 still unbalanced.
I've seen so many so called mapper, designer, artists, and such who join a group / project and never do anything. These guys are pro artist at idling.
I know it can be difficult to create something for many reasons. But just joining and being idle isn't a thing to do. They usually end up making the PR more than anything (In which case is gonna be more and more lying)...
If you start something make sure it's gonna be out someday. 2 years is a little long.
I've tried testing my map with bots for about five minutes, but they just ran into walls.
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
Two guys running around on the map isn't even close to a complete game test.
Bots can do the job. It's not like humans of course but it helps doing a lot of debugging and see if something is just wrong or not.
And i agree with 2cough. This game needs more map. It's better to have 10 maps unbalanced than 5-6 still unbalanced.
I've seen so many so called mapper, designer, artists, and such who join a group / project and never do anything. These guys are pro artist at idling.
I know it can be difficult to create something for many reasons. But just joining and being idle isn't a thing to do. They usually end up making the PR more than anything (In which case is gonna be more and more lying)...
If you start something make sure it's gonna be out someday. 2 years is a little long.
I've tried testing my map with bots for about five minutes, but they just ran into walls.
Yes, my pathing mesh was working.
Yea it's no substitute for actual human players... -BUT- it CAN be very useful for breaking through -- I'm going to coin a term here -- "mapper's block". This is where you think your map is looking just fine, nice and balanced... maaaayyybbeeee a problem here or - nah can't be, your map is perfect! Then... you play test it with bots, and you discover all sorts of really cheesey marine camping spots. It's difficult to always catch these in the editor, and it's also difficult to catch these if you just run around on the level alone. It actually makes a huge difference when getting "feel" for your map if you've got SOMETHING to shoot at... even it if it just some bots.
We have mentioned on many occasion both of us have struggled for time.
We've had to stop, ran into design hurdles, move house and country, travel, renovate, had to work jobs where there simply is not enough time for hobbies like this.
Have you made a map? I haven't been able to do it yet, not many have. I have endless respect for anyone who even attempts one let alone completed one.
And how many are to 'standard' enough to keep everyone happy and make mainstream server rotations?
NS2 maps are WITHOUT a doubt the most difficult multiplayer map there is to build. Scifi design is complicated, the art standard of ns2 is the highest of any, gameplay, vis distances, cyst placement, performance, distances must all be considered across ~10 unique rooms with unique corridors and preferably unique prop assets.
To commit to an entire project is a near impossibility.
It takes UWE ~6 months of overtime work with an experienced team of the industry's most talented mappers, prop artists and solid art direction to build an already tested greybox into hopefully a functional map.
We are not that good and we are only two and this is not our day jobs.
Janos had been lucky to get permission from Merkaba to do Hera, He was reluctant because it is his proud design IP and he knows how difficult a task it is. He asks for a complete re-envisioning, I had offered my help and together we will only do this correctly or not at all.
The community project has opened a door for this to happen again, the support from the community team has been excellent and we have rebooted it in the last few months. We have both allowed time in our lives to try again.
The game has changed enough since previous versions so we 'started again' with a new design only a few months ago improving on existing plans and rooms.
What else can I say except we are doing the best we can?
There is never guarantee a map will work nor that you will find time to finish it. We are not perfect but we are giving it a shot anyways.
i started my map over a year ago, its very close to release ready with only 1 res and 2 tech points left to go but it is a huge undertaking and my standards are far lower than you guys.. i know the time and strain it takes to make an ns2 map and im not even finished yet.
I want to be clear that I wasn't trying to be cynical in my post, if that at all is what you got from it. Simply trying to express that it's understandable for people to be very curious about the development of this map, especially this late in the game. I respect you both for taking the project on, though I know the community has felt snubbed as far as interaction goes in comparison to maps like kodiak and caged in which there was/has been feedback w/ the communtiy throughout the entire project. I understand and remember reading that there were moves and this, that, the other goin on.
My personal disappointment comes because this was one of my top 2 fave maps from ns1, had been looking forward to playing it for sooooooo long now, but am finally phasing out of ns2/pc games in general. 1200 hrs is a lot of time I could have spent working on career-oriented projects, doing other hobbies, etc. So, at this point, I don't know now if this map will ever be something my eyes will behold.
Which is why I mentioned that in retrospect, it could have been nice to reach out to the community much earlier. Again, I mean no disrespect and am not aiming for cynicism, just tossin some thoughts out.
I've tried testing my map with bots for about five minutes, but they just ran into walls.
Yes, my pathing mesh was working.
It happened to me when i had a hole in the map. I thought not, but bots did find it and tried to go across the wall to reach something. It's like they try to go in straight line to the objective (which is the hive).
Find the hole. Close it and bots will get on track again.
And i agree with 2cough. This game needs more map. It's better to have 10 maps unbalanced than 5-6 still unbalanced.
Yes, the game needs more maps, but unbalanced map's will just not be played apart from 2-3 games on some playtest server.
What a NS2 map needs to be played is the "official stamp". It needs to be visually appealing (hera check) and atleast have the "basic" balance of e.g. mineshaft.
but ns2 mapping isnt easy, whilst it is kind of easy to make a visually appealing map if you use alot of props, you have to take into account a hell of alot. individual rooms have to be balanced depending on their location within the map, you have to consider light and dark areas. available cover, distances and many other aspects that in a typical fps map have little real affect on gameplay.
NS2 maps are some of the hardest maps to make and to make them play well is a long process, the chances of a mapper getting lucky with an early build playing well are almost zero.
Hell even some of the offical maps arent really balanced, luckily in pub games though rarely teams are balanced so it kind off off sets map balance anyway provided there are no glaringly obvious issues.
LokiJoin Date: 2012-07-07Member: 153973Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited August 2014
non of you have the rite to QQ at these guys. If anything you should be supporting them.
You want the map right? then support them
When the map does go out to the world play it, GIVE THEM FEEDBACK, so they can improve it. The best time to do this is while its in its early stages its far easier to change then and less work.
PelargirJoin Date: 2013-07-02Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
This is not easy I know to get feedbacks from the players. Most of them promptly decide to changemap just when they see a different map with a different name. That's a shame because how mappers can improve their map without any feedbacks? it looks impossible from my point of view and that's why it's really appreciated when some players take a look on their private server to have a quick overview of these maps.
It's even worse if mappers are pretty close minded, kinda rare on NS2 though (no ad or no asking for feedbacks on forums, etc). Personally, I'd be very disappointed (if I was creating a map) to see so few opinions & feedbacks, that's also the case for the most popular maps. I have no idea how @UWE or @CDT can improve this to help community mappers to get their maps more famous, bring them some feedbacks or even testers. For an official release like Kodiak but it could work to just release them on the Workshop as custom maps.
And I agree, ealry stages are the best to improve maps, it's kinda harder when it's more or less fully textured with all the stuff & props.
what i would like to see is the community development team putting abit of focus into some of the community maps by making offical videos of gameplay sessions on the site and a quick run down of the map etc to encourage people to try it and also encourage the mapper to keep focused on it
what i would like to see is the community development team putting abit of focus into some of the community maps by making offical videos of gameplay sessions on the site and a quick run down of the map etc to encourage people to try it and also encourage the mapper to keep focused on it
what i would like to see is the community development team putting abit of focus into some of the community maps by making offical videos of gameplay sessions on the site and a quick run down of the map etc to encourage people to try it and also encourage the mapper to keep focused on it
videos of custom maps on the main page
This came to mind:
So whatever happened to Kodiak, did he ever finish it or... :P
Comments
Will ventilation still have bare rock exposed? That's part of what made it iconic for me.
Some areas we are trying to keep as close to the original while attempting to make it our own while other areas have needed a complete overhaul and I imagine most people have noticed we have had to add a few extra rooms, for the moment it's all just grey box and it's still subject to change depending on how the play-tests go, so while some parts of the map you might not recognise it helps to remember that it's still just a grey box for the time being.
Thats true, but you should consider its because everytime they say they are actively working on it... and months are elapsing.
They should just say: "Hey, we are working from time to time on it. We dont know if it will ever be finished because YEARS are gone since the first post, so expect nothing."
That would be probably the truth and nobody would expect anything. Its just the "we are (always) hard working on it."
I think this is widely regarded as understood. However, 2 years seems excessive to still be in gray box, and untested by probably a lot of people who could be very helpful. Consider the many many many thousands of people who could have had the opportunity to play this map and who probably wanted to play this map for nostalgic reasons who will probably never install ns2 again at this point in time.
It's awesome that it's coming along, but it's also a bummer in a way. Having laid claim to this map has obviously prevented anybody else from wanting to take the project of a hera on... for almost 2 years. And who knows how many more months before they even make it playable for the rest of us plebs.
Yes maps take a long time, and I understand this is something we could otherwise not have at all, but it's disappointing how many people have been looking forward to this for so long, and the sad fact that maybe around 800 people will even have to opportunity to play it. And that's not saying that they all will (so many customs that have been around a while that I've never even found a server to play em on.)
I suppose in retrospect, I think it would have been nice for them to let the community know that it had not been worked on for such a long time at the point that they knew they couldn't work on it, and maybe offered up their work for other community mappers to take over. I know it's their baby, but this is a map that probably everybody has been anxious for for just too long.
Don't get me wrong, I'm stoked. But it's sort of a hollow excitement anymore, as I am beginning to let my ns2 urges wane in favor of enjoying things IRL.
Ahhh real life - what a beautiful and terrible thing.
Brushes is how maps USED to be constructed in Quake, Half-life, quake II and many other games.
A brush is a convex object defined by a number of planes; most often a rectangular block, but it can be any convex shape, like a cylinder, a prism, a pyramid etc. Convex means that if you shot a "ray" through the brush from any angle it will enter the brush exactly once and exit the brush exactly once.
Any concave object is built from multiple brushes instead of multiple polygons. A concave object is something like cup, from some direction there is an "indentation" somewhere.
When the map is compiled, the sides of the brush that are not visible get discarded, and you end up with an number of polygons, w_polys, that the engine can render.
You guys, seem to have skipped a few lines they wrote though. Hera has received testing, it's just been in-house and between them, and not public test sessions for everyone. Also I think they got a pretty good grip on how to spin the editor
Two guys running around on the map isn't even close to a complete game test.
but its fun and private
Bots can do the job. It's not like humans of course but it helps doing a lot of debugging and see if something is just wrong or not.
And i agree with 2cough. This game needs more map. It's better to have 10 maps unbalanced than 5-6 still unbalanced.
I've seen so many so called mapper, designer, artists, and such who join a group / project and never do anything. These guys are pro artist at idling.
I know it can be difficult to create something for many reasons. But just joining and being idle isn't a thing to do. They usually end up making the PR more than anything (In which case is gonna be more and more lying)...
If you start something make sure it's gonna be out someday. 2 years is a little long.
I've tried testing my map with bots for about five minutes, but they just ran into walls.
Yes, my pathing mesh was working.
Yea it's no substitute for actual human players... -BUT- it CAN be very useful for breaking through -- I'm going to coin a term here -- "mapper's block". This is where you think your map is looking just fine, nice and balanced... maaaayyybbeeee a problem here or - nah can't be, your map is perfect! Then... you play test it with bots, and you discover all sorts of really cheesey marine camping spots. It's difficult to always catch these in the editor, and it's also difficult to catch these if you just run around on the level alone. It actually makes a huge difference when getting "feel" for your map if you've got SOMETHING to shoot at... even it if it just some bots.
We have mentioned on many occasion both of us have struggled for time.
We've had to stop, ran into design hurdles, move house and country, travel, renovate, had to work jobs where there simply is not enough time for hobbies like this.
Have you made a map? I haven't been able to do it yet, not many have. I have endless respect for anyone who even attempts one let alone completed one.
And how many are to 'standard' enough to keep everyone happy and make mainstream server rotations?
NS2 maps are WITHOUT a doubt the most difficult multiplayer map there is to build. Scifi design is complicated, the art standard of ns2 is the highest of any, gameplay, vis distances, cyst placement, performance, distances must all be considered across ~10 unique rooms with unique corridors and preferably unique prop assets.
To commit to an entire project is a near impossibility.
It takes UWE ~6 months of overtime work with an experienced team of the industry's most talented mappers, prop artists and solid art direction to build an already tested greybox into hopefully a functional map.
We are not that good and we are only two and this is not our day jobs.
Janos had been lucky to get permission from Merkaba to do Hera, He was reluctant because it is his proud design IP and he knows how difficult a task it is. He asks for a complete re-envisioning, I had offered my help and together we will only do this correctly or not at all.
The community project has opened a door for this to happen again, the support from the community team has been excellent and we have rebooted it in the last few months. We have both allowed time in our lives to try again.
The game has changed enough since previous versions so we 'started again' with a new design only a few months ago improving on existing plans and rooms.
What else can I say except we are doing the best we can?
There is never guarantee a map will work nor that you will find time to finish it. We are not perfect but we are giving it a shot anyways.
I do think you should throw it up on the workshop in whatever state its in. I'm sure folks would love to give feedback.
My personal disappointment comes because this was one of my top 2 fave maps from ns1, had been looking forward to playing it for sooooooo long now, but am finally phasing out of ns2/pc games in general. 1200 hrs is a lot of time I could have spent working on career-oriented projects, doing other hobbies, etc. So, at this point, I don't know now if this map will ever be something my eyes will behold.
Which is why I mentioned that in retrospect, it could have been nice to reach out to the community much earlier. Again, I mean no disrespect and am not aiming for cynicism, just tossin some thoughts out.
It happened to me when i had a hole in the map. I thought not, but bots did find it and tried to go across the wall to reach something. It's like they try to go in straight line to the objective (which is the hive).
Find the hole. Close it and bots will get on track again.
Same as BeigeAlert.
What a NS2 map needs to be played is the "official stamp". It needs to be visually appealing (hera check) and atleast have the "basic" balance of e.g. mineshaft.
NS2 maps are some of the hardest maps to make and to make them play well is a long process, the chances of a mapper getting lucky with an early build playing well are almost zero.
Hell even some of the offical maps arent really balanced, luckily in pub games though rarely teams are balanced so it kind off off sets map balance anyway provided there are no glaringly obvious issues.
You want the map right? then support them
When the map does go out to the world play it, GIVE THEM FEEDBACK, so they can improve it. The best time to do this is while its in its early stages its far easier to change then and less work.
so .....
get involved less qq please!
It's even worse if mappers are pretty close minded, kinda rare on NS2 though (no ad or no asking for feedbacks on forums, etc). Personally, I'd be very disappointed (if I was creating a map) to see so few opinions & feedbacks, that's also the case for the most popular maps. I have no idea how @UWE or @CDT can improve this to help community mappers to get their maps more famous, bring them some feedbacks or even testers. For an official release like Kodiak but it could work to just release them on the Workshop as custom maps.
And I agree, ealry stages are the best to improve maps, it's kinda harder when it's more or less fully textured with all the stuff & props.
videos of custom maps on the main page
I can just agree with this.
This came to mind:
So whatever happened to Kodiak, did he ever finish it or... :P
WOW, can't wait to try this. You're doing an awesome job. Definitely waiting on that workshop release !