Descent is brilliant - Now Refinery really "shines" through as being dull
intellix
Join Date: 2008-03-24 Member: 63950Members
Join Date: 2008-03-24 Member: 63950Members
Was looking through descent and it's quite awesome. All of the areas are memorable and that makes it both fun and easy to navigate around.
Before Gorgeous I thought Refinery was boring and now after seeing descent it's even more evidence how pants it is. The map is very samey and there aren't really any locations (apart from middle) that are so memorable... perhaps it could do with being revamped somewhat? Just to make particular areas more memorable :P
Before Gorgeous I thought Refinery was boring and now after seeing descent it's even more evidence how pants it is. The map is very samey and there aren't really any locations (apart from middle) that are so memorable... perhaps it could do with being revamped somewhat? Just to make particular areas more memorable :P
Comments
It's far too open, especially now with Railgun exos, all of those huge open rooms (containment, pipeworks, lava falls, extraction, smelting) are just killzones for aliens...
i'm not a fan though. the layout of the northern side is too confusing with too many boring zig-zag corridors and confusing vents. also lava falls feels like an empty warehouse, too much wasted space - might be improved with a lower ceiling (providing easier cover for skulks getting to the rafters/pipes).
the re-modelling at smelting/transit(?) with those moving buckets is really nice though.
It is a bit dull visually but I don't really mind it being the "depressing" industrial map. It maintains a very different feel from the other maps in that way.
I know that in Refinery there's the.... middle lava bit, and Marine spawn with the broken window.
I know in Descent there's the space-looking see through floor room, gravity room, disco, mall area outside it, crashed train, turbine room, red employee quarter area etc.
I've only spectated around Descent and I can remember many of the rooms as they're very unique and interesting. Refinery seems to just be.... A room with pipes, a room with pipes, a room with pipes. There's nothing interesting or memorable about any of the rooms.
I think how easy a map is to navigate around is similar to the tests you do on websites where you ask the user to view it for 5 seconds and then ask the user to tell you what they took from that 5 seconds. If a map has an interesting element in each of the areas then it's easy to navigate and fun.
This probably doesn't help my point but refinery does have the rather uniquely named room "Empty Space." I had a game yesterday where a rather frustrated commander was yelling at a rookie to "get his stupid ass to empty space," which the rookie interpreted to mean that the commander wanted him to bugger off out the air lock. Hooray for crisis intervention! Everyone had a laugh afterwards.
There's a few rooms that could use some sprucing up, but the, well, falls of lava in "Lava Falls" and the giant animated vats of molten metal in "Smelting" are pretty memorable for me. I wouldn't say that it's totally devoid of interesting stuff; there's actually quite a lot of neat stuff if you look around.
One big thing I will agree with, though, is that if you're playing with bloom and/or atmospherics enabled you're going to have a hell of a time seeing anything on refinery and I'd recommend playing without them at least on that map (personally I play with most of my settings fairly low but my systems is almost four years old now).
yeah but there could be some more catwalks or something at least... no offense to the mapper but some rooms (especially lavafalls) are very clearly lacking detail and atmosphere compared to the other maps. lavafalls kinda feels like a classic quake map or something.
i think the area you're referring to is called 'rabbit warren'.
As for descent, no doubt it is a beautiful map, but some parts erk me. I'm all for multi level architecture making an appearance in NS2, but at least make it functional. That area above the escalator in plaza, and those catwalks in that water processing type room. Why are they even there? I have never had a practical reason to go there. I can't see why anyone would want to. The commander can't see them, so you can't build up there. They needlessly complicate the map in my opinion.
I have not spent enough time in Descent to judge yet. But it's a big map with a lot of detail. I'm sure a lot of hard work went in to it.
I did notice there are a lot of onos trollolol places for jetpackers to menace onii though. All those multilevel bits...
The multilevel bits of descent were always sort of an experiment to see what could feasibly work in a map. Ultimately plaza didnt originally have the glass windows up top... they were placed there after determining through multiple layouts in that area, that allowing such easy access up there was just too overpowered and so eventually it was demoted to just a novelty area. If these areas were more viable for gameplay, they would have been more prominently accessible
I think if the wide open areas were fixed; it would be a better map.
Only small things I'd like to see changed would be to have a power node at falls approach for the other res node, and to have more aerial hazards at Lava Falls.
My guess is that more of the older maps will get facelifts at some point, especially ones where the layout is still a bit in flux.
Nope. Descent isn't very good, it's a try-hard map designed to be pretty and showy. The important factor- how it plays- is rather low. I rate it lower than Mineshaft. It's too large, winding, confusing, and claustrophobic.
Andrew has done a wonderful job with Refinery. It includes unique prop work, cinematics and designs and if you the take the time to look at each room, you will find they are all startlingly different.
Descent is awesome, of course, but it was also very expensive. Not every map will receive the same budget. Think of Descent as the blockbuster movie of maps.
Also, when you next post a thread in General Discussion, refrain from calling people's work 'crap.'
For instance, flow control and the surrounding areas could have a completely different clean style from the rest of the map and it would really 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 also really use a makeover with a stronger theme. Right now it has a bit of a feel of 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?
Tram in particular 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.
Also, dude, this is how you give map feedback, not calling things "crap."
Awesome job intellix! Months of creative and technical work on this map and you call it crap just like that! You are the man.
What I do wonder, however, what is the purpose of the giant moving smelting pots in transit and smelting. Having them move sure looks and sounds cool, but they having a buggy collision quickly breaks the impression and immersion, at least for me. As of now they don't serve a gameplay purpose, as they're mostly just confusing and annoying to navigate through, and their aesthetic purpose suffers from the same bugginess. Being stationary (as they were before) would, in my opinion, accomplish both gameplay and aesthetic goals without breaking the immersion.
I think the thing that is clear, is that large open spaces really don't add to this game too well. The most popular maps tend to have small - medium spaces.
Personally I think corridor/vent style maps suit this game a lot better. Why fight it? It allows for marines and aliens to play off against each other more effectively.
Can't complain about the stunning art assets!
Exactly, i always thought it was a bit of a mistake to go with the dirty and dull looking refinery/tram/mineshaft artset and i wonder how much better off the game would be today if they instead went with descent/biodome to begin with, im sure it would have made the game look a lot more interesting to people.