I give up, you'll get that door back
Mendasp
I touch maps in inappropriate placesValencia, Spain Join Date: 2002-07-05 Member: 884Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Retired Community Developer
I touch maps in inappropriate placesValencia, Spain Join Date: 2002-07-05 Member: 884Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Retired Community Developer
Edit: The map has been <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?act=st&f=4&t=100396&st=0" target="_blank">released</a> already, so don't bother replying here <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been active in this community for a while... I'm the guy that maintains the "new" bast.
If you remember, the source to ns_bast was lost and I arranged a team to bring it back, the first version we released (included in NS 3.0 Beta 4) was faithful to the original and had minor balance tweaks. After that, everything went downhill, the Beta 5 version removed the revolving door and added a dirty 10 minute job full of crates between the Engine hive and the Marine Spawn. And the new Bast was considered by a lot of people as a piece of crap.
So, the next few versions introduced even more changes, and the more changes I made to the map, the worse it felt... so I'm here to ask you something... Do you want the old Bast back? It's perfectly possible... since I have the source files around. It could be included in the next release of NS, and if that fails somehow, I could release it as ns_bast_classic or something (for real this time <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" /> ).
I know it wouldn't be playable in competitions, but it's not like the new one is ready for that, either.
I already know the answer, but I'm making the thread just to make sure...
As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been active in this community for a while... I'm the guy that maintains the "new" bast.
If you remember, the source to ns_bast was lost and I arranged a team to bring it back, the first version we released (included in NS 3.0 Beta 4) was faithful to the original and had minor balance tweaks. After that, everything went downhill, the Beta 5 version removed the revolving door and added a dirty 10 minute job full of crates between the Engine hive and the Marine Spawn. And the new Bast was considered by a lot of people as a piece of crap.
So, the next few versions introduced even more changes, and the more changes I made to the map, the worse it felt... so I'm here to ask you something... Do you want the old Bast back? It's perfectly possible... since I have the source files around. It could be included in the next release of NS, and if that fails somehow, I could release it as ns_bast_classic or something (for real this time <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" /> ).
I know it wouldn't be playable in competitions, but it's not like the new one is ready for that, either.
I already know the answer, but I'm making the thread just to make sure...
Comments
The NS Forums is losing it's sense humour - Thaldarin
[/derail] lol yes that door was the pwn
But the door would be so great!
but keep the new refinery.
And why perfectly balance? a handycap for a team on a map once in a while can be fun.
Take off the rose-collored glasses - the door was always an awful ideal and original bast's layout was/is just wrong on so many different levels. Current bast is tollerable, but still quite unpopular because because of the repeated mistakes of the original.
We already have Shiva - which took a page from the bast book - and went hog wild with crap that just gets in the way of good gameplay. A zillion ladders, elevators, hives in water, cramped main routes, and ultra cramped hive exits don't make for fun gameplay. They just turn off players enough that the updated versions of the map don't ever get played even when the mapmaker makes tremendous improvements (which he did).
Apply this to bast - there isn't a single route from marine start to every hive that's not blocked by a slow door + stairs, or an elevator + ladder (one with another door). Go to Main Aft from marine start and you've 2 elevators to refinery hive and a door with steps to engine hive - zero flow, zero onos friendly paths - just map "features" that inhibit gameplay. Now - add a freakin rotating door in front of the only exit that leads to two hive locations and leads directly to every res node (minus 2) on the map?
This isn't single player. Gates are not a viable mechanism (or even a fun one) for this type of game.
Also...I think the res in main aft should be where the stairs are, and should maybe be replaced by a big f'ing ramp or something :x. It's just a big pain to try to kill skulks and fades in there. They have like 3 diff. exits. lol.
Everything else is good, except for perhaps the engine siege spots. Perhaps make them a bit more ...open? And less bile-bomb prone. The entire map (it seems) can be bile bombed from somewhere. What a pain in the #@%.
Everything else is cooool dude. You shouldn't be all freaked out about it. If you made the passageways a bit wider/streamlined, then I think the popularity would go up by a directly proportional amount. Do you have any idea what a pain in the #$%# it is to jp through those narrow canyons? At least for newbs..it's impossible. Also...one onos stomp..will stomp EVERYONE down a hallway, b/c the hallway is so narrow.
A) fix Main Aft entrance from marine spawn.
B) move Main Aft RT somewhere a closer to spawn.
C) move atmos RT a bit closer to spawn.
D) make hallways wider for ffs.
E) improve engine hive siege spots, and maybe even feedwater. Refinery...is just almost impossible to siege :x.
F) streamline map to make it more straight-forward to go to different sections (although all the vents going everywhere is very cool.
ogogogogogogo. GET it done. I want to play new version in 1 week. GO dude. GOGOGO.
Ultra, that was a brilliant post. Hah.
Releasing the old bast would be just a recompile with a few generic bugfixes introduced in the new versions...
im perfectly fine with the door in the *Secret Room* for nostalgia <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
but i im not a part of the majority of the ns-community, as i still look back to 12-person unmodded ns-only servers for example >_>
That was when NS was new and exciting. A few people have referred to the door as bad mapping, and mistakes made in the map...bear in mind that ns_bast was, pretty much, the very first NS map ever. Relic25 did an amazing job at the time and made an awesome map that unfortunately didn't stand the test of time as NSs gameplay got iterated and iterated. The map was brilliant, no matter what anyone says; it's a piece of NS history!
Oh, and there are surely ways to bypass that rotating door, such as simply adding a vent that circumnavigates it. There are nearly always solutions to problems.
If ns_bast_classic does get made, then I demand that someone brings ns_hera_classic up to scratch too <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
1. The door. It was freaking awesome to have some rines on one side, then to see the door start, then to see an onos come around. Just awesome. BUT... it was buggy as hell.
You could keep the concept, while fixing the bugs. The floor you could decide to keep or not keep; it was kinda laggy, which took away from the effect, but it sorta worked. A big issue was players dying from the walls. Maybe clip the walls just enough so that players never actualy touch them?
Or perhaps change it entirely, where the door is more like a C (from the top down), which moves around like that. I personally found the door fun, but its all a debate about fun/atmosphere/new gameplay mechanics vs balance/flow/overgimmicky.
2. The vents. Goddamnit, the vents! those vents that you reached from the MS elevator (or by jumping from the ladder... jumping well), were fun as hell. The only route for a marine to take to use those vents now are from the tram-feed intersection room, and they dont really even serve much of a purpose (cept ninja'ing Engine, but goddamn thats far). Maybe figure a way to bring back the 'fun vents' aspect, because Bast was one of the real pioneers of that.
I still absolutely love the vents of feed and tram. And whats really wrong with the Bridge route from Main Aft to Refinery? Its a perfect ninja route, since people barely take it, its long and tight, and you're even noticeable to the keen alien eye (lower junc).
Bast was and always will have some of the crazier NS elements (Refinery being a case in point). Dont let it die, but try to bring back some of the more fun aspects that it's lost over the years. Just try to keep them balanced <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
The map was brilliant, no matter what anyone says; it's a piece of NS history!
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Of course, which is why I wanted to revert to the old version so I don't feel like I've raped a classic <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
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If ns_bast_classic does get made, then I demand that someone brings ns_hera_classic up to scratch too <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
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I was thinking that it'd be easy to do, but then I realized that my ns_bast_classic has a good start with the first version of the remake which is already inside the entity limits... heh. We're talking about the "huge" Hera, right? <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink-fix.gif" />
If anything I say bring back the old map, accept that it will never be a competitively feasible map, and make changes and bug fixes that instead compliment and accentuate the current version rather than try to fix the things that make the map special, and individual, but at the same time take away it's ability to be competitively supported.
I can't imagine the amount of raping machina would need to be a competitive map, and frankly I wouldn't want to see it anyways. For NS sometimes the narrow mold of what a competitive map needs doesn't always fit the overall picture of what makes a map fun or not fun in pub play. The games are almost completely different anyways, when was the last time you saw a 2 hive marine lockdown in a match?
Nobody plays the current bast, really. The old bast oozed style and coolness. It has some of the most memorable locations in the whole game. Atmo! Ref! That big drillshaft with the electricity zapping all over the place!
As for people getting killed in the revolving door, it's a simple matter to learn not to position yourself on the edge. The door acts as a way of keeping marines grouped together. Enhancing teamwork. The original NS design docs said that there should be parts of the map that cause marines to take check of where they are relative to the rest of their team. Quad lift on ns_nothing, for example. Saying that door is a bad thing because it occasionally kills people is like saying that the pits of death in ns_nothing spawn are a bad thing since you can accidentally fall down them. Or that ANY elevation that could result in a marine dying if he fell off is a bad thing. Typical American thinking. The individual is absolved of any responsibility for his own wellbeing.
/me gently revolves.
--Scythe--
And why perfectly balance? a handycap for a team on a map once in a while can be fun.
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I have to agree. It was what I liked about the old maps. One site had to really fight to win, and it made victory some much sweeter when you did when. You don't want that on every map, but it is nice to have an map with a underdog team every so often. Everyone talks about how skilled they are if it is "perfectly" balanced, but that is usually on maps with nearly always sets strats. Once people have to think fast on their own, many can not do it in game, especially in the competitive scene (and I know, I have played competitive in CAL).
Back during 1.04 I loved playing aliens. Yes the HMG/JP rush was usually devastating, but when you were able to actually stop one you felt alot of acomplishment
I WANT TEH PH**KING DOORSSSS!!!11111oneoneoneleven <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tounge.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":p" border="0" alt="tounge.gif" />
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i cant wait until you look back at what you posted a few years from now.
I have to agree. It was what I liked about the old maps. One site had to really fight to win, and it made victory some much sweeter when you did when. You don't want that on every map, but it is nice to have an map with a underdog team every so often. Everyone talks about how skilled they are if it is "perfectly" balanced, but that is usually on maps with nearly always sets strats. Once people have to think fast on their own, many can not do it in game, especially in the competitive scene (and I know, I have played competitive in CAL).
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I'd rather see maps that allow long and even rounds with a plenty of different situations. Metal, for example, has quite often 30+ minutes of good-enough-quality public rounds.
<b><!--sizeo:7--><span style="font-size:36pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo-->[PLEASE DON'T] BRING BACK BAST! <3<!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec--></b>
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<!--sizeo:4--><span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%"><!--/sizeo--><b>Spoilsport!</b><!--sizec--></span><!--/sizec-->
It being a classic doesn't mean it has to be played. Just give them an old BSP but leave the current, playable version of bast as it is. Don't make a shiva out of it and reduce bast to mere obscurity. "That map with the buggy door? nah. /votemap ns_veil"
As some of you may have noticed, I haven't been active in this community for a while... I'm the guy that maintains the "new" bast.
If you remember, the source to ns_bast was lost and I arranged a team to bring it back, the first version we released (included in NS 3.0 Beta 4) was faithful to the original and had minor balance tweaks. After that, everything went downhill, the Beta 5 version removed the revolving door and added a dirty 10 minute job full of crates between the Engine hive and the Marine Spawn. And the new Bast was considered by a lot of people as a piece of crap.
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To be perfectly honest, most people thought the old bast was a piece of crap too. It had lots of flavor and very little balance. I'm sure plenty of people would like to see it for nostalgia purposes, so by all means release an ns_bast_classic if you want, but I certainly don't want to see it replace the current one as an official map.
If I had to choose, I would vote to keep the current one.