It's simply too hard for the marines to get a foothold in Eon. Logistics fall heavily on the alien side, as most of the res nodes are concentrated near the hives, marines get one lousy Gunpod Station and since every damn corridor is tiny and small with no real strategic value, it's a haven for skulks and lerks. Many of the rooms are large enough, but have too much **** in the way as to make it really good for fades because the marines can't shoot through some stupid, massive hunk of metal that goes almost to the roof and effectively blocks off 2/3 of said room.
It's simply too alien biased. A redistribution of resource nodes, coupled with making some rooms larger, and cutting down on the number of narrow, claustrophobic corridors would make it much improved.
<!--QuoteBegin-KungFuDiscoMonkey+Apr 3 2005, 06:19 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuDiscoMonkey @ Apr 3 2005, 06:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In my expierence, people seem to use the argument that maps lack 'distinctiveness' as a blanket term to cover up the fact that they are too lazy to learn new maps and too lazy to adapt to new stratigies. My favorite irony about this game. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> You could hide behind that argument, in a kind of flip reverse irony of its own, however Altair and Eon have very little distinctiveness aside from the hives...and the hive rooms on both those maps have, as of yet, not brought fun battles to the game.
You look at Nancy with its mother interface, engine room, mess hall...or origin with its cargo bay, xenoform, laser drilling...or ayumi with its cold turn etc...this is distinctiveness. The way that by visiting a map a few times and learning it...it sticks because key area's are distinctive.
In altair there is *one* distinctive area to my mind (when I look at it in my mind), and I haven't even bothered to remember the name because there is zero use out of doing anything there, not even an RT spot...and thats the spot with the large pool of water. This is compared to at least 3 or 4 in pretty much every other map aside from the hive locations.
Eon is the same, there is a really nice spot near one of the hives...the only reason I haven't learned this room name is because I've not played Eon enough, but needless to say the whole map does to me look like a bunch of coridoors. You could do a lot worse than take on suggestions that have been stated (better than I have done), Olmy.
Edit: overall listen to Sky, doing a much better job of saying what I feel.
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited April 2005
I don't think the issue with eon is its lack of memorable locations. There are so many things that are done well in the map, that its kinda hard for me to believe. Best looking control stations ever!
I think the thing that makes the map less memorable is that it is hard to visually partition. In pretty much every section of the map you have a mix of several different pastel lighting colors, which look very very good, but all of them are everywhere. Every place that needs a light, has it, and the overall effect is very uniform. This also makes the map difficult to learn.
In the best of the official maps (or at least, best visually), you can determine roughly where you are in the map by the textures that are used, and the nature of the lighting. You can partition the map into sections. This isn't true for eon, and I think this hurts it. All of the different colors and intensities and shapes of lighting are used everywhere.
There are a few hallways in which this isn't true. I can't remember their names offhand, but the hallways with the pipes on one side with the cool rectilinear supports and the perfectly aligned textures with the pinkish red lighting coming from underneath are awesome. So is the hallway with the four corners of each support dotted with a cool blue-green light. But the map needs more of these, and it needs them parititioned.
The effects you have going look great in screenshots and each location is gorgeous, I just think it could benefit from more isolated continuity.
Imagine the mountain of moan tanith would get for cargo and reactor room if it was a new map. From my perspective the biggest problem with altair is that people do not play it. Eon gets nexted quite often as well, but I'm hopeful it will change after some of the issues get some tlc.
Sky called the maps cramped. I feel both altair and (to lesser extent) eon are rather distinctive maps in their design and architechture. They mostly lack the shooting galleries that most other maps have. They have smaller rooms and short or junctioned corridors. Personally I do like the ambitions and the ideas behind the maps. Or atleast what I think they are.
I think people do not find the maps distinctive, because the maps do not offer that moving from room to room -style that most maps have. People can't put the map in order as easily. A lot of people seem to see just a mess of corridors and small rooms. Neither map has a nice, obvious place to dump a pg in that would be easy to defend. I'm personally quite fond of them, visually. If most maps had been as skulk loving I don't think skulk boosting would ever have been such an issue.
That said, I think altair is rather fine as it is. The real grip I have with the map is Life Support hive, which is a bit difficult hive for aliens, to hold or retake. Yet that's minor compared to the strange existential crisis the center area, station monitoring, seems to have. I can't count the number of games where I've tried to inspire the team to go through the center, instead of trying for consistency or life support.
With eon, marines often get slaughtered trying to save the nodes in core power and life support just giving rfk to aliens. Also the number of failed sieges from core monitoring is staggering, but that I'm willing to blame on the map. Sieging is somewhat of an exercise in eon. Perhaps Core hive could be siegeable from core power, and Engineering from Engine Walkway. Also moving the engine walkway node to living quarters might be an interesting idea.
<!--QuoteBegin-Uniikki+Apr 3 2005, 06:48 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Uniikki @ Apr 3 2005, 06:48 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Sky called the maps cramped. I feel both altair and (to lesser extent) eon are rather distinctive maps in their design and architechture. They mostly lack the shooting galleries that most other maps have. They have smaller rooms and short or junctioned corridors. Personally I do like the ambitions and the ideas behind the maps. Or atleast what I think they are.
<b>I think people do not find the maps distinctive, because the maps do not offer that moving from room to room -style that most maps have. People can't put the map in order as easily. A lot of people seem to see just a mess of corridors and small rooms. Neither map has a nice, obvious place to dump a pg in that would be easy to defend.</b> I'm personally quite fond of them, visually. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You say exactly what I said, but call it a positive. Brilliant! The very fact that the map doesn't get played often is proof positive that the map isn't popular; all I was doing was laying out the reasons why it's not popular. If you like it because of the same reasons that drive everyone else away, power to you, but altair won't be selected on any vote if it stays that way.
I am more of the opinion that people just aren't giving the maps a chance. If it's merely a question of how the map looks, then that's different. But if people do not play the map because they are deterred by their initial confusion and the different playing style it requires (as I see it), then I can encourage people to give the map a chance. For I do belive that most people would learn to like the map and slightly different pace and style it offers. Variety and all that :-)
And of course it might be that cramped areas simply do not play well in NS, that they will always throw the balance to the aliens. Or just that people do not and never will like such maps. I have no real interest in playing combat, whatever anyone says :-)
During the constie tests i haven't heard much complaining about ns_eon (except the ms vent of course <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->). After the 3.0 release i heard things like "Ah not eon, i tried it once and didnt know where to go. eon sucks lets play another map!" And i thought "wth, the map is new how should you know???" Some people seem to stick with this and dont want to try the map again.
I like eon and although I havent played it much yet I know the layout of the map. I dont know the names but i know where to go. The rooms are not all the same.
It's not just that the rooms are all similar, it's that none of them excepting the two hives have that 'cool' factor. Here are some rooms that have said factor: -Hera: Data Holo Marine Start Maint Vent
-Tanith: Double Waste Sat Com
-Bast: Basically any room <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
-Eclipse: Triad CC Eclipse
-Metal: ....same as bast...
Now, if you say that it's just that it's a new map, well I can tell you you're very much mistaken, because I just played Shiva, and I think it's an incredibly cool map. Look at the screenshots in the thread in Gen and in the Mapping forum. Better yet, look at the minimap. Big rooms, few corridors, lots of nice transitions, yet the big rooms don't lead to marine domination.
Well ns_caged is a big mess of corridors, it's just that they happen to be very big corridors... Though you still do most of your fighting in them! Nobody complains about that though!
And KFDM's comment on people being too lazy to change is quite valid. When NS 1.0 first came out, every ran around screaming "0gM1 1mb4lanc3d!!1", without really coming to terms with the fact that skulks could wall-walk. For the first month or two, most newbie skulk players (never having played a lifeform like that before) would run straight down the middle of a corridor at their enemies, never attempting to ambush or dodge their prey. I'll admit I was just as guilty of that back then. It took a while for people to get used to thinking in 3d terms, and to start hiding above doorways using walls to help dodge bullets.
Just look at the way the JP/HMG strat suddenly appeared during 1.04's life. The bug that allowed that strat to be possible existed since 1.0, and it took 3 new versions and well over half a year of non-stop playing for people to catch onto it.
Right from the word go, NS players have always been set in their ways and quite astoundingly slow to adapt. Coming in here after you've played the game for 6 months and having learned all your current tactics and strategies from other players who already knew them and then telling people who have been playing the game for 2 and half years and had to learn all these strategies on their own and have already realised how set in their ways they were and still currently are that people <b>aren't</b> just being too lazy to learn and that it's just that the gameplay is somehow flawed or wrong is a bit hard to swallow.
If every time somebody screamed out "bad gameplay" due to their own unwillingness to learn the dev or mapper decided to conform, NS today would be just be CS with strange looking terrorists... The fade as it exists today would certainly have never come to be...
There is a distinct difference between believing a game to be unbalanced and believing a map to be in need of some changes. Like you said, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to examine all of the possible strategies and tactics, only after which can you make a good assesment of balance. Maps, visually at least, and to a lesser extent gameplay-wise, are much easier to judge in a static environment. I need only look at a room once to say "The lighting's off" or "It's too open". You can't do that with balance, so comparing the two is really far-fetched.
An example of a new map that was accepted readily by the community - nancy. Once a custom map, it went official because people liked it so much, and people still do like it. I wish the same fate on shiva.
<!--QuoteBegin-Revenge+Apr 4 2005, 01:44 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Revenge @ Apr 4 2005, 01:44 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> And KFDM's comment on people being too lazy to change is quite valid. When NS 1.0 first came out, every ran around screaming "0gM1 1mb4lanc3d!!1", without really coming to terms with the fact that skulks could wall-walk. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> You're talking about knee jerk reaction to change...we're talking about playing the maps through enough to realise we just don't appreciate them like the other maps around. If we were completely against new maps then how would we have veil, or ayumi (though that maps problems are a seperate issue...even though people have fun playing it)?
Altair and Eon seem, ultimately, to have it's only real battles in the hive locations...and as pretty as most of the hives in those two maps are, they really aren't fun for battling in imo. With other maps you battle elsewhere too, and thats the real beauty of them.
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<!--QuoteBegin-KungFuDiscoMonkey+Apr 3 2005, 01:19 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (KungFuDiscoMonkey @ Apr 3 2005, 01:19 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> In my expierence, people seem to use the argument that maps lack 'distinctiveness' as a blanket term to cover up the fact that they are too lazy to learn new maps and too lazy to adapt to new stratigies. My favorite irony about this game. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> I really don't think you are reading people right in this regard. If a lot of people have the same criticism I'd say you are better off assuming that they've actually identified what they don't like about it correctly.
I know people may seem callous and ungrateful in their feedback, but what do you expect? You are putting something out there for the public! The public is always ungrateful!
I think a lot of times, you really have to turn the other cheek. People that spit nothing but disrespect will often respond helpfully if you really respond in a way that lets them know that they have been heard and that you are serious about trying to make their experience better. A lot of it is in how you phrase things. For instance, you could say "I can't fix anything without specifics." or you could say, "People have been saying that, but I'm not really how to go about fixing it. I'd love to hear some of people's ideas." I'm willing to bet that the second response will get you a lot further in getting the feedback you need.
That said, those who aren't mappers really need to understand how much work goes into a map, and that being flippant or dismissive in your comments is enormously disrespectful of the amount of work that goes into making a map. Even if you don't like something, you have to be sure to remember that the person who made it put a ridiculous amount of their life into it.
I don't like Eon because it's so cramped, and anything bar skulk is more or less a nightmare to play as. That's just my taste though, doesn't mean the map's bad per sé, so take no notice of my opinion.
Altair is really decent now, had a bit of help from the game itself to polish away the marine imbalances (long corridors etc), but it's a pretty decent map overall. Have to give KFDM some credit for increasing it's playability throughout the versions.
personally I dont like altair much. however, altair has some architecture and the new version even features some nice light effects. but I cant really find out why I dont like it. maybe its because most of the walls seem flat with this kind of texturing.
to the eon part: the only thing I dont like is the fact that many areas look similar. but well used textures, nice architecture, very nice ideas (I just love the bridge!!!) make it more unique. only thing that would be nice: more colorful lighting.
its a fact that the "fulltime ns player" doesnt like new maps. it was and allways will be. players who play ns from time to time, custom content hunters and mappers are more tolerant. but things can change from time to time. at the beginning noone liked origin. thats why the people in my clan started to play it more often. choosing this map in a clanmatch allways brought some extra wins <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> maybe you should see it that way. anybody is able to play eclipse. but when you lern to play the new maps you will have a massive advantage.
i like eon <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
eon - it is too easy with a coordinated alien team to pin marines in base, long enough to get 2 fades and a lerk and game is over too quick. even with a not so coordinated alien team, if you get one gorge blocking up marines left exit with oc's, without armor one/weapons 1, there isn't much marines can do, and normally at least one or two skulks protect the gorge. marines never seem to realize that they can try exitting base on the right side, not sure why.
Adapt. Adapt is all I here people say. But in the CAL finals, played by the best in the game, we see all alien wins on tanith and caged, but then when they played veil, it was all marine wins minus last round. Can it be said the game is unbalanced, or the maps are unbalanced? Or maybe both? There are problems with maps. You cannot just say "oh adapt you whiner" everytime people say a map is bad.
A bit of both, but it's obvious that some maps fit the needs of one team or another. -Veil is clearly a map for marins. -Eon is a map for alien. You can hide everywhere even at the marins start doors. As a marins it takes a year to move and verifying all the 'hiding places'.
ssjyodaJoin Date: 2002-03-05Member: 274Members, Squad Five Blue
there is no problem with an alien biased map, look at caged. bug eon goes a lil far with this, maybe opening up some areas around MS, some of the halls. its the marines area of the map, cater it to them. altair, idk, kfdm, u need to listen to ppl more. the map may indeed play well, but it has too much of a gloomy feeling for it to be enjoyable. and sections of the map have to be blocked off with a style. like, simple example, one end of the map has red lights, another has blue, another has green. helps a person remember things and figure them out. even if i have the layout memorized, it'll still take a second of lookin around to see where i am.
Wow, who proofread these .txt's? I'm reading through caged.txt, and it's full of "'their not there' and 'you're not your'" mistakes.
If any dev's chance upon this, I'm willing to go through and comb all the grammatical errors out of the stories before the next release. Chikaze@comcast.net if you're serious. ( Bgates@microsoft.com if you're not <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
<!--QuoteBegin-Gecko God Of Dooom+Apr 4 2005, 10:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Gecko God Of Dooom @ Apr 4 2005, 10:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I like ns orbital alot. Its a very well balanced map. I think the only resion why it isn't in the main build is because of Pen-15 rez node <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Don't forget rear access :O
<!--QuoteBegin-ssjyoda+Apr 4 2005, 02:27 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (ssjyoda @ Apr 4 2005, 02:27 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> there is no problem with an alien biased map, look at caged. bug eon goes a lil far with this, maybe opening up some areas around MS, some of the halls. its the marines area of the map, cater it to them. altair, idk, kfdm, u need to listen to ppl more. the map may indeed play well, but it has too much of a gloomy feeling for it to be enjoyable. and sections of the map have to be blocked off with a style. like, simple example, one end of the map has red lights, another has blue, another has green. helps a person remember things and figure them out. even if i have the layout memorized, it'll still take a second of lookin around to see where i am. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> If its alien biased theres a problem obviously.
<!--QuoteBegin-Alkiller+Apr 4 2005, 11:07 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Alkiller @ Apr 4 2005, 11:07 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Gecko God Of Dooom+Apr 4 2005, 10:06 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Gecko God Of Dooom @ Apr 4 2005, 10:06 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> I like ns orbital alot. Its a very well balanced map. I think the only resion why it isn't in the main build is because of Pen-15 rez node <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Don't forget rear access :O <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> A minimap would be nice as well. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Tengue+Apr 3 2005, 01:35 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Tengue @ Apr 3 2005, 01:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Too many places for aliens ambushes, on eon. Too easy to stop human expanding, in the begining. Especially, if first chamber is a sens. Alien's map. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> Nothing wrong with that. Marines need to find a different playstyle for the map, maybe sticking together would be a good idea. Personally, I love ns_eon. Its wonderful, and it feels so refreshing with the new corridors that I havent seen duplicated anywhere else. I love the vents that run under the walkways -- tracking marines has never been so much fun.
Altair is pretty good too. It could use some sprucing up here and there, but I think players are still thinking of it as that -- no offense -- slightly.. <i>blander</i> shall we say, piece that was in the earlier versions.
<!--QuoteBegin-Haze+Apr 6 2005, 02:51 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Haze @ Apr 6 2005, 02:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> <!--QuoteBegin-Tengue+Apr 3 2005, 01:35 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Tengue @ Apr 3 2005, 01:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Too many places for aliens ambushes, on eon. Too easy to stop human expanding, in the begining. Especially, if first chamber is a sens. Alien's map. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd--> Nothing wrong with that. Marines need to find a different playstyle for the map, maybe sticking together would be a good idea. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> you stick together automatically on eon because its so cramped. doesnt mean that it helps you though.
<!--QuoteBegin-Haze+Apr 6 2005, 08:51 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Haze @ Apr 6 2005, 08:51 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Personally, I love ns_eon. Its wonderful, and it feels so refreshing with the new corridors that I havent seen duplicated anywhere else. I love the vents that run under the walkways -- tracking marines has never been so much fun. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> *Nods head*
\o/ Anyway, i widened two corridors that were really narrow (coming out of core monitoring) and i'm considering reworking core power, but i'll wait a while longer before making more drastic changes.
Comments
It's simply too alien biased. A redistribution of resource nodes, coupled with making some rooms larger, and cutting down on the number of narrow, claustrophobic corridors would make it much improved.
As for Altair, haven't played it much.
You could hide behind that argument, in a kind of flip reverse irony of its own, however Altair and Eon have very little distinctiveness aside from the hives...and the hive rooms on both those maps have, as of yet, not brought fun battles to the game.
You look at Nancy with its mother interface, engine room, mess hall...or origin with its cargo bay, xenoform, laser drilling...or ayumi with its cold turn etc...this is distinctiveness. The way that by visiting a map a few times and learning it...it sticks because key area's are distinctive.
In altair there is *one* distinctive area to my mind (when I look at it in my mind), and I haven't even bothered to remember the name because there is zero use out of doing anything there, not even an RT spot...and thats the spot with the large pool of water. This is compared to at least 3 or 4 in pretty much every other map aside from the hive locations.
Eon is the same, there is a really nice spot near one of the hives...the only reason I haven't learned this room name is because I've not played Eon enough, but needless to say the whole map does to me look like a bunch of coridoors. You could do a lot worse than take on suggestions that have been stated (better than I have done), Olmy.
Edit: overall listen to Sky, doing a much better job of saying what I feel.
I think the thing that makes the map less memorable is that it is hard to visually partition. In pretty much every section of the map you have a mix of several different pastel lighting colors, which look very very good, but all of them are everywhere. Every place that needs a light, has it, and the overall effect is very uniform. This also makes the map difficult to learn.
In the best of the official maps (or at least, best visually), you can determine roughly where you are in the map by the textures that are used, and the nature of the lighting. You can partition the map into sections. This isn't true for eon, and I think this hurts it. All of the different colors and intensities and shapes of lighting are used everywhere.
There are a few hallways in which this isn't true. I can't remember their names offhand, but the hallways with the pipes on one side with the cool rectilinear supports and the perfectly aligned textures with the pinkish red lighting coming from underneath are awesome. So is the hallway with the four corners of each support dotted with a cool blue-green light. But the map needs more of these, and it needs them parititioned.
The effects you have going look great in screenshots and each location is gorgeous, I just think it could benefit from more isolated continuity.
Sky called the maps cramped. I feel both altair and (to lesser extent) eon are rather distinctive maps in their design and architechture. They mostly lack the shooting galleries that most other maps have. They have smaller rooms and short or junctioned corridors. Personally I do like the ambitions and the ideas behind the maps. Or atleast what I think they are.
I think people do not find the maps distinctive, because the maps do not offer that moving from room to room -style that most maps have. People can't put the map in order as easily. A lot of people seem to see just a mess of corridors and small rooms. Neither map has a nice, obvious place to dump a pg in that would be easy to defend. I'm personally quite fond of them, visually. If most maps had been as skulk loving I don't think skulk boosting would ever have been such an issue.
That said, I think altair is rather fine as it is. The real grip I have with the map is Life Support hive, which is a bit difficult hive for aliens, to hold or retake. Yet that's minor compared to the strange existential crisis the center area, station monitoring, seems to have. I can't count the number of games where I've tried to inspire the team to go through the center, instead of trying for consistency or life support.
With eon, marines often get slaughtered trying to save the nodes in core power and life support just giving rfk to aliens. Also the number of failed sieges from core monitoring is staggering, but that I'm willing to blame on the map. Sieging is somewhat of an exercise in eon. Perhaps Core hive could be siegeable from core power, and Engineering from Engine Walkway. Also moving the engine walkway node to living quarters might be an interesting idea.
<b>I think people do not find the maps distinctive, because the maps do not offer that moving from room to room -style that most maps have. People can't put the map in order as easily. A lot of people seem to see just a mess of corridors and small rooms. Neither map has a nice, obvious place to dump a pg in that would be easy to defend.</b> I'm personally quite fond of them, visually. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
You say exactly what I said, but call it a positive. Brilliant! The very fact that the map doesn't get played often is proof positive that the map isn't popular; all I was doing was laying out the reasons why it's not popular. If you like it because of the same reasons that drive everyone else away, power to you, but altair won't be selected on any vote if it stays that way.
And of course it might be that cramped areas simply do not play well in NS, that they will always throw the balance to the aliens. Or just that people do not and never will like such maps. I have no real interest in playing combat, whatever anyone says :-)
After the 3.0 release i heard things like "Ah not eon, i tried it once and didnt know where to go. eon sucks lets play another map!"
And i thought "wth, the map is new how should you know???"
Some people seem to stick with this and dont want to try the map again.
I like eon and although I havent played it much yet I know the layout of the map. I dont know the names but i know where to go. The rooms are not all the same.
-Hera:
Data
Holo
Marine Start
Maint
Vent
-Tanith:
Double
Waste
Sat Com
-Bast:
Basically any room <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
-Eclipse:
Triad
CC
Eclipse
-Metal:
....same as bast...
Now, if you say that it's just that it's a new map, well I can tell you you're very much mistaken, because I just played Shiva, and I think it's an incredibly cool map. Look at the screenshots in the thread in Gen and in the Mapping forum. Better yet, look at the minimap. Big rooms, few corridors, lots of nice transitions, yet the big rooms don't lead to marine domination.
And KFDM's comment on people being too lazy to change is quite valid. When NS 1.0 first came out, every ran around screaming "0gM1 1mb4lanc3d!!1", without really coming to terms with the fact that skulks could wall-walk. For the first month or two, most newbie skulk players (never having played a lifeform like that before) would run straight down the middle of a corridor at their enemies, never attempting to ambush or dodge their prey. I'll admit I was just as guilty of that back then. It took a while for people to get used to thinking in 3d terms, and to start hiding above doorways using walls to help dodge bullets.
Just look at the way the JP/HMG strat suddenly appeared during 1.04's life. The bug that allowed that strat to be possible existed since 1.0, and it took 3 new versions and well over half a year of non-stop playing for people to catch onto it.
Right from the word go, NS players have always been set in their ways and quite astoundingly slow to adapt. Coming in here after you've played the game for 6 months and having learned all your current tactics and strategies from other players who already knew them and then telling people who have been playing the game for 2 and half years and had to learn all these strategies on their own and have already realised how set in their ways they were and still currently are that people <b>aren't</b> just being too lazy to learn and that it's just that the gameplay is somehow flawed or wrong is a bit hard to swallow.
If every time somebody screamed out "bad gameplay" due to their own unwillingness to learn the dev or mapper decided to conform, NS today would be just be CS with strange looking terrorists... The fade as it exists today would certainly have never come to be...
An example of a new map that was accepted readily by the community - nancy. Once a custom map, it went official because people liked it so much, and people still do like it. I wish the same fate on shiva.
You're talking about knee jerk reaction to change...we're talking about playing the maps through enough to realise we just don't appreciate them like the other maps around. If we were completely against new maps then how would we have veil, or ayumi (though that maps problems are a seperate issue...even though people have fun playing it)?
Altair and Eon seem, ultimately, to have it's only real battles in the hive locations...and as pretty as most of the hives in those two maps are, they really aren't fun for battling in imo. With other maps you battle elsewhere too, and thats the real beauty of them.
I really don't think you are reading people right in this regard. If a lot of people have the same criticism I'd say you are better off assuming that they've actually identified what they don't like about it correctly.
I know people may seem callous and ungrateful in their feedback, but what do you expect? You are putting something out there for the public! The public is always ungrateful!
I think a lot of times, you really have to turn the other cheek. People that spit nothing but disrespect will often respond helpfully if you really respond in a way that lets them know that they have been heard and that you are serious about trying to make their experience better. A lot of it is in how you phrase things. For instance, you could say "I can't fix anything without specifics." or you could say, "People have been saying that, but I'm not really how to go about fixing it. I'd love to hear some of people's ideas."
I'm willing to bet that the second response will get you a lot further in getting the feedback you need.
That said, those who aren't mappers really need to understand how much work goes into a map, and that being flippant or dismissive in your comments is enormously disrespectful of the amount of work that goes into making a map. Even if you don't like something, you have to be sure to remember that the person who made it put a ridiculous amount of their life into it.
Altair is really decent now, had a bit of help from the game itself to polish away the marine imbalances (long corridors etc), but it's a pretty decent map overall. Have to give KFDM some credit for increasing it's playability throughout the versions.
however, altair has some architecture and the new version even features some nice light effects. but I cant really find out why I dont like it. maybe its because most of the walls seem flat with this kind of texturing.
to the eon part: the only thing I dont like is the fact that many areas look similar. but well used textures, nice architecture, very nice ideas (I just love the bridge!!!) make it more unique. only thing that would be nice: more colorful lighting.
its a fact that the "fulltime ns player" doesnt like new maps. it was and allways will be. players who play ns from time to time, custom content hunters and mappers are more tolerant. but things can change from time to time. at the beginning noone liked origin. thats why the people in my clan started to play it more often. choosing this map in a clanmatch allways brought some extra wins <!--emo&;)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/wink-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> maybe you should see it that way. anybody is able to play eclipse. but when you lern to play the new maps you will have a massive advantage.
tbh, i don't like altair that much though.
-Veil is clearly a map for marins.
-Eon is a map for alien. You can hide everywhere even at the marins start doors. As a marins it takes a year to move and verifying all the 'hiding places'.
altair, idk, kfdm, u need to listen to ppl more. the map may indeed play well, but it has too much of a gloomy feeling for it to be enjoyable. and sections of the map have to be blocked off with a style. like, simple example, one end of the map has red lights, another has blue, another has green. helps a person remember things and figure them out. even if i have the layout memorized, it'll still take a second of lookin around to see where i am.
If any dev's chance upon this, I'm willing to go through and comb all the grammatical errors out of the stories before the next release. Chikaze@comcast.net if you're serious. ( Bgates@microsoft.com if you're not <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
Don't forget rear access :O
altair, idk, kfdm, u need to listen to ppl more. the map may indeed play well, but it has too much of a gloomy feeling for it to be enjoyable. and sections of the map have to be blocked off with a style. like, simple example, one end of the map has red lights, another has blue, another has green. helps a person remember things and figure them out. even if i have the layout memorized, it'll still take a second of lookin around to see where i am. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
If its alien biased theres a problem obviously.
Don't forget rear access :O <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A minimap would be nice as well. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Too easy to stop human expanding, in the begining.
Especially, if first chamber is a sens.
Alien's map. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nothing wrong with that. Marines need to find a different playstyle for the map, maybe sticking together would be a good idea. Personally, I love ns_eon. Its wonderful, and it feels so refreshing with the new corridors that I havent seen duplicated anywhere else. I love the vents that run under the walkways -- tracking marines has never been so much fun.
Altair is pretty good too. It could use some sprucing up here and there, but I think players are still thinking of it as that -- no offense -- slightly.. <i>blander</i> shall we say, piece that was in the earlier versions.
Bring on the new maps!
Too easy to stop human expanding, in the begining.
Especially, if first chamber is a sens.
Alien's map. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nothing wrong with that. Marines need to find a different playstyle for the map, maybe sticking together would be a good idea. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
you stick together automatically on eon because its so cramped. doesnt mean that it helps you though.
*Nods head*
Totally agree.