Suggestions for a little thematic variation in Tram and Refinery
moultano
Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Creator of ns_shiva. Join Date: 2002-12-14 Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
in Mapping
I posted this in a comment on a thread in General Discussion, but the thread as a whole was trollish and seemed unlikely to be read, so I thought I'd post it over here where it might come to more use.
I think the industrial looking maps could benefit from having bifurcated styles. A clean bright style for areas that are primarily intended to be used by humans and the current grittiness for everything else. It would make them seem much more real.
Refinery
Flow control through empty space could have a completely different clean style from the rest of the map and it would improve the ambiance of the whole thing due to the contrast. Imagine the impact of walking from an ordinary looking office out into lava falls for the first time. That would be a goosebumps moment.
The Chasm -> Turbine area could use a bit of a makeover with a stronger theme. Right now it sorta feels like random boxes and the chasm itself never enters into the gameplay. If you actually go sit as a skulk on the other side of the chasm, it's really pretty, but there's never a reason to do that during the game. Maybe a vent from turbine should follow a catwalk on that side? I'd love to see a quote from the famous ns_nothing walkway appear somewhere here. I always feel tiny and exposed as either marine or alien when I walk through this area, but I don't get a strong sense of what anything is.
Tram
Tram would benefit from having a totally different style of lighting for the central tram tunnel. It's a really cool and clever piece of architecture with how it works so well with the layout, but the cleverness disappears because it looks identical to everything else in the map, so you aren't really aware while playing that this is a big structure with common architecture. If it had a really distinct and unique theme, this map would really come into it's own. Right now it's in a nice place where it plays really well and has a lot of great arenas, but it's so uniform that it blurs into a mass of blue and red polygons, despite the fact that the geometry is really good and interesting.
Anyways. Love both of these maps, just had these thoughts recently and thought I would share.
I think the industrial looking maps could benefit from having bifurcated styles. A clean bright style for areas that are primarily intended to be used by humans and the current grittiness for everything else. It would make them seem much more real.
Refinery
Flow control through empty space could have a completely different clean style from the rest of the map and it would improve the ambiance of the whole thing due to the contrast. Imagine the impact of walking from an ordinary looking office out into lava falls for the first time. That would be a goosebumps moment.
The Chasm -> Turbine area could use a bit of a makeover with a stronger theme. Right now it sorta feels like random boxes and the chasm itself never enters into the gameplay. If you actually go sit as a skulk on the other side of the chasm, it's really pretty, but there's never a reason to do that during the game. Maybe a vent from turbine should follow a catwalk on that side? I'd love to see a quote from the famous ns_nothing walkway appear somewhere here. I always feel tiny and exposed as either marine or alien when I walk through this area, but I don't get a strong sense of what anything is.
Tram
Tram would benefit from having a totally different style of lighting for the central tram tunnel. It's a really cool and clever piece of architecture with how it works so well with the layout, but the cleverness disappears because it looks identical to everything else in the map, so you aren't really aware while playing that this is a big structure with common architecture. If it had a really distinct and unique theme, this map would really come into it's own. Right now it's in a nice place where it plays really well and has a lot of great arenas, but it's so uniform that it blurs into a mass of blue and red polygons, despite the fact that the geometry is really good and interesting.
Anyways. Love both of these maps, just had these thoughts recently and thought I would share.
Comments
I'd actually agree about Tram, the map has a lot going for it but the lighting is pretty uniform for sure.
I did experiment with having more varied styles in the map at a couple of stages in development, but quite honestly it always felt like the map was having an identity crisis so I dialled it back. I am actually interested in doing more in the Flow Control/Empty Space area to make the theme more consistent, so you may end up with some of the transition you are talking about, although less intense.
Ran back to base, killed 5 skulks one after the other, and then realized that I was the only person alive and there were no infantry portals.
Getting that infantry portal back up was intense. Building it and desperately listening for skulks was pretty terrifying, especially since I had maybe 12 bullets left in my gun. We did end up making a slow comeback and winning the game about 55 minutes later.