Concern concerning official "smaller maps" layouts
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aka RpTheHotrodDallas, TX Join Date: 2003-01-08 Member: 12027Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
aka RpTheHotrodDallas, TX Join Date: 2003-01-08 Member: 12027Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
I KNOW the game is not "complete" or even in alpha testing yet. This is just a concern of mine.
I know, according to <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=106143&st=160&p=1705052&#entry1705052" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...p;#entry1705052</a> , that the maps will be smaller than NS maps. The reason behind this is to remove "pointless" corridors and walkways/paths to rooms.
I understand the reasoning, but I think a point is missed in this thinking.
If we just remove paths, and put rooms a stone's throw from another, it's just like, walk walk ROOM, okay let's get to here, walk ROOM!, all right next place move out wal..ROOM!
The feeling of exploration, or even the challenge of getting to the next location would be gone, including any attempts at stopping the other team from getting to the next location. The place would really feel crowded, no? No real way to ambush a group of marines as they start making their way to the next key location and trying to stop them. It looks like the game would just turn into room battles with no inbetween. Camp a room, if you fail, fall back to next room, hold that one, if fail, move back and hold the previous (or try to flip it and push towards another room).
The corridor walking I find rather enjoyable. It's as if working your way towards a goal destination is in place, and your reward is getting to your destination alive if you managed to survive the trip.
With the thinking of "pointless travel paths", we may as well consider NS maps with no corridors and put just put hive and RT rooms right next to each other. The gameplay just wouldn't feel right. Take a right, hive room, take a left, RT...then hive. Forward, RT room, RT room, hive.
Without a natural "travel path" to destinations, we're reducing gameplay of rooms, corridors, ambushes, and minor territory control OUTSIDE of key places (ie pushing territory control towards a key room, little mini bases in corridors, etc...) down to just flat out room battles.
Is this concern valid? I personally find the size of NS maps to be exciting. Feels less like deathmatch and more like we're really doing battle over a ship, or a refinery.
Something it's not about your destination, but the journey getting there.
I know, according to <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=106143&st=160&p=1705052&#entry1705052" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/in...p;#entry1705052</a> , that the maps will be smaller than NS maps. The reason behind this is to remove "pointless" corridors and walkways/paths to rooms.
I understand the reasoning, but I think a point is missed in this thinking.
If we just remove paths, and put rooms a stone's throw from another, it's just like, walk walk ROOM, okay let's get to here, walk ROOM!, all right next place move out wal..ROOM!
The feeling of exploration, or even the challenge of getting to the next location would be gone, including any attempts at stopping the other team from getting to the next location. The place would really feel crowded, no? No real way to ambush a group of marines as they start making their way to the next key location and trying to stop them. It looks like the game would just turn into room battles with no inbetween. Camp a room, if you fail, fall back to next room, hold that one, if fail, move back and hold the previous (or try to flip it and push towards another room).
The corridor walking I find rather enjoyable. It's as if working your way towards a goal destination is in place, and your reward is getting to your destination alive if you managed to survive the trip.
With the thinking of "pointless travel paths", we may as well consider NS maps with no corridors and put just put hive and RT rooms right next to each other. The gameplay just wouldn't feel right. Take a right, hive room, take a left, RT...then hive. Forward, RT room, RT room, hive.
Without a natural "travel path" to destinations, we're reducing gameplay of rooms, corridors, ambushes, and minor territory control OUTSIDE of key places (ie pushing territory control towards a key room, little mini bases in corridors, etc...) down to just flat out room battles.
Is this concern valid? I personally find the size of NS maps to be exciting. Feels less like deathmatch and more like we're really doing battle over a ship, or a refinery.
Something it's not about your destination, but the journey getting there.
Comments
Some hallways in NS1 maps were just there for timing distances, and I agree that those should go if they aren't beneficial to the game play. I think part of the reasoning is keeping the players closer together to respond to events instead of some NS1 situations where the travel times really hurt one team over the other.
Plus it is so easy to make fantastic looking hallways in the spark editor I can not imagine not putting hallways in any map I attempt to make.
As of yet not actually seeing an official map layout or seeing how the game works, concern is unjustified. Wait for such things, complexities such as the power grid will enhance the ability that less really could be more.
Apparently as soon as you step into a room you're teleported across it to the next doorway. Populating the map with rooms instead of hallways has nothing to do with size or "feelings of exploration." If anything the orientation towards set-pieces and memorable locations will make exploring maps more interesting and memorable, but I hope you realize that unless your memory is damaged in some way, the novelty of maps will wear off after one or two play-throughs. Hallways are almost necessarily generic, but rooms can add purpose to the map with specific settings that can tell a story. It's also unlikely that rooms will be big open boxes like cargo on tanith. They will more likely be something along the lines of biodome on origin, with room specific obstacles and flavor.
As to the size... well your own link makes the size argument irrelevant. The distance from marine start to computer core on that image is exactly the same as the distance from one end of the NS2 map to the other. A lot of the size can be explained by eliminating wasted space in between hallways on NS1 maps. Rooms can be compacted more while preserving a sense of logical organization. Half the time in NS1 maps hallways were filled with seemingly random bends and dips that would make no sense if the map reflected a realistic location. Do ns_nancy and ns_bast reflect real ships? What ship have you been on that is two rooms connected by 200 meters of hallway?
I was always disappointed by the low number of blocked doorways in those tunnels indicating there was more ship you could not reach. Mineshaft was one of the few maps where long hallways made sense since it was a mine...
Yeah it was probably a polygon and FPS issue, hopefully that is not as much of an issue for NS2.
As to the size... well your own link makes the size argument irrelevant. The distance from marine start to computer core on that image is exactly the same as the distance from one end of the NS2 map to the other. A lot of the size can be explained by eliminating wasted space in between hallways on NS1 maps. Rooms can be compacted more while preserving a sense of logical organization. Half the time in NS1 maps hallways were filled with seemingly random bends and dips that would make no sense if the map reflected a realistic location. Do ns_nancy and ns_bast reflect real ships? What ship have you been on that is two rooms connected by 200 meters of hallway?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
A solution to this would be having "mini" rooms act as corridor replacements to the "real deal" rooms...still adding a sense of having to get to a location, rather than tripping into it. 200 meters of random corridors? How about minor corridors to small rooms which lead to the next large location. I've been on several ships and in many buildings, and corridors are often large but have many minor rooms connected, or is split by minor rooms.
I'm saying there should be a natural progression/pathing to new major locations.
As of yet not actually seeing an official map layout or seeing how the game works, concern is unjustified. Wait for such things, complexities such as the power grid will enhance the ability that less really could be more.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bad attitude. Everything should be questioned.
I only know of <strike>three</strike> four maps that actually kept an eye on a realistic ship layout, mine, <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=50814" target="_blank">ns_hulk</a> and <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=102065" target="_blank">ns_nexus</a>
And I do want to see hallways, they can add a good atmosphere, bottlenecks to any map! As long as they are logical and reflect other areas on other decks or sections that make the hallway the shape they are!
Patience is a virtue.
I didn't realise questioning gameplay mechanics makes you impatient.
I share some of OP's concern.
--Scythe--
In many ways, I think NS2 maps will be a mix between ns_ and co_ gameplay. They will be smaller than ns_ maps, but retain the same strategic gameplay. They will be larger than co_ maps, but keep the same intensity, and the slighly more crowded feel. Plus, they will be easier to learn--and remember, one of the key goals of the smaller NS2 map was to make the maps easier to learn, with each tech room having a different "theme."
I disagree, however, that NS2 maps will revert to "flat out room battles." In most cases I think the game will revolve around the center "diamond" (C,D,E, and F on my map).
Consider this: the first two tech rooms for the Marines are 1 and 2--and for the Aliens, 5 and 6. These are the "easy" tech rooms. They are connected only by a small corridor, with one bend in it. It is not in these two rooms that the majority of battles will be fought. Instead, the fight will be over the third tech room for each team (3 for Marines on my map, 4 for Kharaa). That is why the third tech room for each team is placed farther away from the first two. In fact, it is almost as easy to get to the other team's third tech point as it is for a team to get to their own.
For example, consider the Marine team. They have tech rooms 1 and 2--those are easy. But tech point 3 is farther away, almost as far as tech point 4 (which is the other team's third tech point). Here comes a decision: Do I cap my own third tech point or do I prevent the other team from getting theirs? Some players will do one, some will do the other. This will concentrate the battles to RTs D and E. And thus, the majority of game-play (with balanced teams) will stay outside of the big rooms and stay in the corridors. And for argument's sake, let's say that the Marines decide to focus all their men on tech room 4, instead of their own tech room 3. Well, this will leave them unbalanced, and will give the Kharaa an easy chance to take tech room 3. What I've just explained, I think, is the goal of tech rooms and "dynamic game-play."
<img src="http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/337/ns2powergridnumbered.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Essentially, they are trying to make the maps more space efficient.
And I do want to see hallways, they can add a good atmosphere, bottlenecks to any map! As long as they are logical and reflect other areas on other decks or sections that make the hallway the shape they are!<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Ahem.
Which would be the third? :P
I share some of OP's concern.
--Scythe--<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree with this but at the same time there's still room for awesome corridors, just not as many of them. Some of my favorite memories from maps like Eclipse are from the corridors rather than the rooms, but I think it might be too early to say whether a more room-focused mapping style will be worse or better. Plus when I have the developers saying it will be better, I'm inclined to trust them on this one.
Taking away or shortening corridors will make the game have more action moments, instead of lulls in gameplay. It would make the game tighter, faster, and make players more reactive. Personally, I never really liked ns_ayumi, because of its insanely long corridors. It made travel from point to point a chore and it was difficult getting to a place under attack in a short amount of time.
Which would be the third? :P<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah I said three maps didn't I :D
Even I can forget a name damn it, I was just going to have a look for it and then found your post. So now we have our three maps... Hmm wait a minute me thrown together co map is also a ship, making the total four <|:D
<-edited previous post...
I choose to question the original posters question regarding the concern concerning the layout.
I question your questioning of the original questioner's questioning regarding the concern concerning map layouts.
<img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3017/2936214305_5c04a6b263.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://www.dvdactive.com/images/reviews/screenshot/2005/1/1_copy12.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
:D
It is just more compact, less long corridors stretching out.
<img src="http://www.dvdactive.com/images/reviews/screenshot/2005/1/1_copy12.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
:D<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<img src="http://spyhunter007.com/Images/a_space_odyssey_discovery.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Essays/Lexx.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
--Scythe--
You can make corridors big enough to count as rooms, and you can make rooms which you have to fight through, but fewer pointless narrow corridors should be a goal.
[..]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Or make you realize you can't win that way and find another way around across vents, walls, by cloak or by distracting the enemy.
Please think of the marines as well, nothing like a comfortable hallway to stand in, one gets claustrophobic in small spaces and around skulks on crack.
Please think of the marines as well, nothing like a comfortable hallway to stand in, one gets claustrophobic in small spaces and around skulks on crack.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you can go by through alternate routes within the space or the corridor is sufficiently wide to allow you to outmaneuver people then it's not a corrdior, it's a room. That's what a room is, a space big enough to allow outmaneuvering your enemy with multiple routes crossing the same space, but with enough interconnection to make it clear that this is a single space. Everyone in a room should be fighting everyone else in a room, but they should have several routes to do that by. A room forces conflict when two enemies are in it, whereas two separate rooms do not. A corridor is a very badly made room because it offers only one route and fighting in it amounts to shooting everything that runs towards you or running towards everything that shoots you.
I disagree. Firstly I haven't heard of these limitations in the engine, but that's irrelevant. I think having smaller maps WAS a gameplay decision, because Charlie and co. decided on shorter-length, more 'casual'-accessible games. With smaller maps, there's less travel-time between points (especially critical points - for example, tech points and resource nodes) on the map, cutting the game time; and there's likely a higher occurrence of firefights as there's less distance between two groups of potential opponents and less distance between critical points, making the experience faster and more hectic overall, suitable for a shorter-length game time.