Newmap: pbcup_warhouse

[Dirty_Taco]

I stopped and started this map a bunch of times dating all the way back to pbcup season 1 (2006?). In my recent re-emergence i took a look through my old mapfiles and found this one about 5% done. I tried playing the old warhouse.bsp in a match twice since coming back and new people just forfeit it. This map deserves better.

This is an attempt to modernize warhouse so it doesn't get relegated to the dustbin. All the maps dimensions are the same as warhouse except the height. I made the ceiling(s) a bit higher so double jumping was possible. I added a lot of small jumps and whatnot to make chokepoints more interesting, but I left all the core components of the map. And although i didn't want to make players spawn with everything, I knew I had to if there was any chance of this map being played.

When I completed the map, naturally, I had broken vis and rad. This map probably would never have seen the light of day if it wasn't for Fourthx. Understanding Quake2's compilers is a dying art and he is one of the last few. So if you like the map, thank him.

Give this map a shot in tomorrow's social saturday and let me know how it plays. Need feedback on the lighting in particular.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/14bv6159w10derp/pbcup_warhouse_b1.bsp?dl=0

Will add more screenshots later on tonight

[Blitz]

Legit.

[JeongWa]

It's a modernized version of warhouse.

If you compare the looking of the original version with this one, it's night & day.

You guys did a good job. It's a pleasure for the eyes.

The only downside is the performances. With a nvidia gforce 1060 graphical card when i'm looking mid from anywhere on the map.
My FPS goes down from 500 to 120 and i can see why it would be an issue for lower GPUs. Anything below 250 FPS feels whack on DP2.

[jitspoe]

The only downside is the performances. With a nvidia gforce 1060 graphical card when i'm looking mid from anywhere on the map.
My FPS goes down from 500 to 120 and i can see why it would be an issue for lower GPUs. Anything below 250 FPS feels whack on DP2.

Yeah, there were some brushes that were detail that shouldn't have been, so most of the map is visible, even though a lot of visibility should be locked.  FourthX is looking into it.  Might need some tweaks to reduce long sightlines as well.

Gameplay wise, it's pretty solid.  I'd like to see more maps like this where there's just 1 flag, but it's difficult to defend (and not because of crazy fast ice jumps).  Should help keep new players from being completely shut out but still be competitive.

My biggest complaint is the stairs feel really awkward to navigate.

Minor notes:
- Area around the flag could use some markings or something so it's obvious which side faces the enemy base.
- If you catch an archway in the doors you can get stuck.  Need some clip brushes or need to move/remove the angles.

[Dirty_Taco]

Beta2 is here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xjfnjjc4zs6txgy/pbcup_warhouse_b2.bsp

FourthX worked over the entire map to improve performance and make the lighting better. Performance wise it is far, far better than it was. I'll let him provide a summary of his changes if he wants to.

[FourthX]

I'm trying to remember everything, here's a incomplete list.

1. Moved loads of small objects to Detail group
2. Added about 8-9 hint brushes to break up some of the areas including a hint brush separating the whole top and bottom half of the map
3. Changed some lighting values
4. Removed face 'value' from many brushes, this was crashing Arghrad
5. Modified the 2 doors on the bottom floor into each base so you don't get caught up by the sides where the arch was below 56 units.
6. Fixed a couple if triangular gaps that were right along the back wall and hard to see
7. Numerous small adjustments and grid alignments.

[Squeeze]

Don't get me wrong, I play a lot of your maps DT, but this is your worst map, that you created.

[FourthX]

It's a modernized version of warhouse.

If you compare the looking of the original version with this one, it's night & day.

You guys did a good job. It's a pleasure for the eyes.

The only downside is the performances. With a nvidia gforce 1060 graphical card when i'm looking mid from anywhere on the map.
My FPS goes down from 500 to 120 and i can see why it would be an issue for lower GPUs. Anything below 250 FPS feels whack on DP2.

The loss of FPS is actually CPU related as DP has a monolithic single thread for almost everything. If you run afterburner or something similar you can see that GPU usage is actually very low. That being said the B2 version should improve things, let me know how it works for you.

[JeongWa]

The B2 definitely improved the performances all across the map. My FPS are rarely getting lower than 200 now. Good job on that.

Concerning the map itself, I'm not a big fan of this type of map where the gameplay is meant to be slower than usual but the map is good looking and some people like that playstyle, I wouldn't mind playing it from time to time for a change of pace.

[Ranger]

Playable, I like it

[jitspoe]

Definitely an improvement.  There's still something funky between floors here (see attachment).  Not sure why all that is visible.  Could also put some sort of wall behind the side windows to help block a lot of the middle area when you're at the back corners of the base.

Probably going to repeat myself here, but:

I love the streamlining you did around the ladders.  I wish the stairs were also streamlined, but they seem even worse than the original.  I think you could make some tweaks to streamline them but still keep the travel time slower.  Using awkward layouts where you bump into stuff is really frustrating and is just going to make people hate the map.  It's super annoying to hit your head on something then get shot.  Could move the entry and exit points of the stairs a bit to lengthen the path.

Inside the flag area is a bit confusing.  Maybe put a banner texture on the back side of the base so you know to go the other way to exit.

The ceiling texture looks out of place, since it's designed to be on a wall.  Yeah, it's what was on the original, but most of the other textures got changed up anyway, so might as well change that, too.

I put the map up on the ev1 beta server so it can be playtested.

[FourthX]

Thanks for the feedback, going to look at the vis again I think i may have removed or moved one of the hints.

[Dirty_Taco]

Alright, the final map is complete, will post in the final map section.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/97dm8qemez16a2r/pbcup_warhouse.bsp

[jitspoe]

Put it up on EV1.  You should probably edit your first post to have the latest version of the map.