oc_NervA -Updated June11-

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Baddtraxx
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Baddtraxx »

holyw... thats.. wow.. o_ o
wanna play it.. on which server is it? keyfox?
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by destiny »

depends if worfox already uploaded it on keyfox.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by DisConnected »

Funjob wrote: Features:
  • A one hour campaign
  • Difficult end bosses
  • Hard as balls gameplay
Ugh, I have a bad feeling this is going to drag on forever. I'll try it first though.

EDIT: Neeeevermind it doesn't want to start.
Oh, don't be such a baby. Episode 3 will come out.

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Re: oc_NervA

Post by MaestraFénix »

Funjob wrote: Features:
  • Difficult end bosses
  • Hard as balls gameplay
Someone knows how to unlock the hard mode? And the bosses are in the hard mode, or the Bosses are the (strong) enemies that are in the map?
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Funjob »

Nah, hardmode doesn't really do too much but disable respawn and give more points in the the credit screen. I honestly don't expect anybody to really play on it. It's the little duct to the briefing room, if you break it before entering, you enter hardmode.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by MaestraFénix »

Funjob wrote:Nah, hardmode doesn't really do too much but disable respawn and give more points in the the credit screen. I honestly don't expect anybody to really play on it. It's the little duct to the briefing room, if you break it before entering, you enter hardmode.
No respawn? that means that everybody have ONE life?.

Then isnt Hard, is the IMPOSSIBLE mode XD (anyway i´ll try it).
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Axel_m3sh »

Maestro Fénix wrote:
Then isnt Hard, is the IMPOSSIBLE mode XD (anyway i´ll try it).
Lunatic Mode :dance:
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Baddtraxx »

Axel_m3sh wrote:
Maestro Fénix wrote: Lunatic Mode :dance:
:potd:


only wat is left to do for a "Lunatic Mode"(I prefer "Phantasmn" :ugly: ) are the Touhou Models :mrgreen:
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by TESLA-X4 »

Great job on the map, I like its style - long maps with storylines are few and far between these days.
However, I noticed that the res file had many unnecessary entries (such as cubemap textures and Thumbs.db), so I've generated a version based entirely on the files that are present in the archive (without the offending entries, of course - the file size is now 50,414 bytes, opposed to the initial 119,484 bytes. That may not seem like a world of difference, but it definitely matters). This matters greatly because the larger the res file, the more likely the server is to crash (bloating the string tables too far has dire consequences that range from the impairment of client connections to total server crashes).

Get it here (only applicable for server operators). IMO, the best approach to this problem is for server operators to only permit the bsp to be downloaded, and to notify clients to download the resources manually from this thread. I have doubts that players will be willing to sit through a seemingly perpetual download in-game anyway.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by MaestraFénix »

Only post this to say that is FULL playable with 8 players. Maybe you will got problems in the train or in the final elevator, but apart of that everything is ok.

P.D: If you make a fix for the things of the map, you can make that the score system was shown if you break the doors? is very annoying end the map without knowing your score.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Keychain »

Seeing as how you are interested in criticism, I'm going to go all out on this:

First off, I am not apart of the "omg this is so cool" fanclub this map has going on. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting concept but could've been implemented much better. I enjoy the speaker that talks to the players throughout the map because it gives me a more "woah" feeling that encourages me to keep going. However, the only parts of this map that I actually like are the very beginning (the first level with the ship) as well as the very ending (the credits theater.)

Why, you may ask? Well, for starters, they're not tunnels! This map is insanely loaded with very narrow and cramped tunnels which makes traveling a pain for the players if mp_playercollide isn't disabled. As well as making it difficult to fight the opposing forces. On the topic of mp_playercollide, it also makes it impossible to travel through the underwater vents. Players are trying to head in completely different directions and it just causes everyone to drown or panic. You can always turn mp_playercollide off by default on the map itself. However, the flip-side to that is that it takes forever for the elevators to work because elevators don't move if any players are 'inside each other.' And knowing how ignorant some players can be, they won't realize this and will sit there forever, wondering why the elevator isn't moving. Possibly blaming the mapper for this error, not knowing that it's them who is causing it.

Also, the map has about 800 files on its own. Custom content is cool, but you can easily overdo it. I'm sure default content would've worked just fine for a lot of this map. Not everyone is aware of being able to download a map out-of-game, and thus for, will make people hesitate to play it, because it takes so bloody long to download. Heck, we can't even put the map's content on KeyFox because massive amounts cause the server to crash. (The map itself is being added, though.)

One more thing, you didn't keep some of these 'features' you promised.
Features:

A one hour campaign
Difficult end bosses
Hard as balls gameplay
The map took no where near an hour as far as I know. Maybe 20-30 minutes. We didn't rush or anything, we played it slow and steady for the most part. Infact, we ended up waiting sometimes because some of the players were much slower than others! I also didn't see any 'bosses.' When I think bosses, I think of striders and antlion guards. Not soldiers that don't stand out from the rest. And lastly, the map wasn't even that hard. Yeah, it has the potential to be hard because of the massive amounts of damage the soldiers do, but that doesn't make it hard when you've got infinite amount of lives + 8 players who know how to shoot things.

In the end, the map was interesting. But it didn't intrigue me as much as I was expecting it to. I recommend finding better scripted weapons, or just possibly more variations. (Variety is an important concept to making a map, because it keeps the experience much wider and will have players coming back for more, though you are probably very aware of this.) I also highly recommend you do more polishing of this map before starting another one. It has a lot of potential and can go places.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Shana »

You should try decreasing the total file size of all the custom content together and then zip all the content in the bsp file.
Like there's a ton of wav files that could be mp3 (unless they need to use cue points to loop), a lot of textures that could be smaller or at least compressed. I saw a bunch of uncompressed 16 mb textures, which is just really stupid, but that's probably not your fault but the skin maker's who wanted to make it "HD" by disabling compression.

Also you have all the cubemap materials in the archive as well as the res, which isn't necessary as those automatically get saved in the bsp when you built them.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Funjob »

I appreciate the feedback. Like I said, this map was the first large map I ever released on the Source Engine, and was more or less a test ground for what I was doing in source for other smaller maps.

Like I said earlier, this map was built for 4 people in mind, but a bulk of the testing was done with only 2 people. With two people alone, and the test runs with 4 people, I easily saw a mean of 30 - 70 mins. As far as the end bosses are concerned, what I was talking about are the 3 extra ant guards in the end of the map. Obviously you didn't trigger the event for them. Too bad too, I found that fun was directly related to how many people were in the server during the boss if you didn't trigger the briefcase ending. The trigger is a button on the right of the stage.

As far as the layout and design of the map, I admit it lacked multiplayer gameplay flow. However map had a large amount of constraints such as the storyline, current size, and the designs of Nerv itself. It was hard for me to just make up large areas when they didn't really exist in the original designs of Nerv. If I did, I felt like I was betraying the original intentions of the map. That being it's meant for fans of the Evangelion series. Not to mention, the large zones would have messed with the scripted weapons if I made larger areas. This is very apparent at the beginning and ending. I didn't rescript the current weapons or add more because I thought it was enough. I also made the mistake of listening to my weapons adviser (No idea of gameplay elements) a little too much.

I was honestly considering not releasing this at all because of the file size and the original nature of Obsidian Conflict/Source gameplay. This is why I didn't make a .res, compress any of the files, nor organized a more proper release. There is no possible way I could have got this map under 64mb, let alone 128mb. Considering the non-forgiving environment the map has during the middle of gameplay, I didn't think it was built for Sourceside downloading because people would be done with the map when other people just downloaded it. The reason I wanted to include so much custom content is because I was sick of HL2 content and how it's recycled in every single mod on the source engine. Not to mention, I was more or less curious on how much custom content I could shove into a map. I guess it was too much in the end.

Like I said, I released the map, 'as is.' I was more or less interested in feedback because I was looking for mistakes I made during the process of making the map. Looking at the feedback I received during release, I see now the entire thing isn't made for Obsidian Conflict, and I really shouldn't have released it in the first place. My failure here was definitely planning, but I knew that already considering I just worked on this map whenever I had inspiration to do so. I figure that this caused a lot of problems when it came to the overall design of the map.

Whatever, I'm not going to delude myself and make excuses for a failed map. I guess it didn't reach the target audience, didn't fit the original constraints, and disappointed the people who followed it. Sorry for wasting your time. Given my current condition, the map's current view on the public, and the problems with my internal design process I know now that the second sequel map is out of the question. I will readdress the the problems with Oc_NervA and re-release it to just Oc_Nerv whenever I have time to do so. I will stop any sort of pre-design phase of Oc_NervB because I now see that it's a waste of time.

Cheers and thanks for the feedback everyone. :D
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by fug4life »

I actually, thought it wasn't bad.

Some of the points Keychain mentioned I agree and some I disagree. Firstly its not about being in some fan club, I guess people are thirsty to play something new, nothing wrong with that, imo.

Bad points:

Tight corridors - though easily fixed with a no-collide trigger, or command.
Large file sizes - again easily fixed with goldwav and vtf edit.

Thats about it in terms of bugs, oh and the healthvials still spawn at the maps origin, 0,0,0. which means you have a healthvial that dosen't have enough room to spawn where you placed it.

Thats it as far as I'm concerned. Yes the map could be more, but based on what it is, its not bad at all.
I've seen many, many worse bugs in a first release of a map, with a lot less work gone into them.


Good points:

Good voice acting,
Good use of waypoints and othe OC ents like countdown timers.
Good pace to the map.

I'm not sure what Keychain dosen't like about the scripted weapons, but I think you did a grand job of finding decent weapons that have w_models appropraitely rigged (ok not all perfect but atleast they are not in the players origin).
There are very few maps that have added as many new scripted weapons as you, so I think you did very well indeed. And I actually love (why? because they are new) everyweapon you choose to include, so I thank you for that.

On the face of it, I think you didn't do a bad job at all, especially to find the motivation to make something like that after such a long period of time.

So thank you, I hope to see the fixed and finished version of Nerv and wish you all the best for the future.
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Re: oc_NervA

Post by Ark »

The map doesn't load for me and some others. Just crashes when doing either "changelevel" or "map".

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