DOM-TempleOfCows
Map Info
	File Name dom-templeofcows.zip Author Hellscrag2002 Gametype UT Domination Date Added 03-30-2003 File Version 1.00 File Size 1.15 mb Player Count 4-12 Map Description A Domination version of my deathmatch map of the same name. Although originally designed for DM, it hit me that it was natural for a three point DOM map, too. Review Rating 6 User Rating 7 Overall Rating 7.0
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  1.5/3 Date 05-08-2004 Build Score:  2.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  2.5/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  7.0/10 AWE: 1.5 Here we've got pretty much everything you'd expect from a map set in an ancient temple, and one thing you definitely wouldn't: ghostly Nali cows. I don't know what strange chain of events inspired Hellscrag to construct a temple honoring that oft-maligned bovine, but I like it. The least you can say for it is that it's original. It's certainly the first map I've seen decorated with pedestals holding glowing, translucent cows, and I'm guessing it'll be the last. Well, not counting its sister map DM-TempleOfCows, anyway. The rest of the map is not so original, but it's well done. Trapezoidal arches and corridors, arched ceilings and alcoves, and some interesting-looking pillars help keep the map from looking too boxy. There are plenty of other nice touches, too. Many of the rooms have small gardens or fountains standing in them, complete with plant life. I suppose even disembodied cows have to eat once in awhile, don't they? The hanging torches that provide much of the map's light look nice, too. Still, more detail would be appreciated; aside from the central room, the poly count rarely tops 150, and often stays under 100, which should give you an idea of how unadorned much of the map is. Texturing is consistent with almost every other similarly themed map out there, primarily utilizing a number of the familiar workhorse textures from the Ancient set. Again, it's not original, but the textures are used tastefully. There are plenty of alignment mistakes, though. The relatively uncomplicated architecture and low lighting render this a lesser problem, but it would have been nice to see a little more effort spent on aligning things nicely. The lighting, too, is simple yet effective. It's not always easy to come up with sufficient light sources in an ancient map, since you can't go decorating the walls and ceilings with electronic lights like you can in a map more modern in style, but the author makes do. There is some ambient light used throughout the map to keep it from getting too dark in the spaces between torches and skylights, bright enough to keep visibility acceptable, and subtle enough to keep the lighting from looking too washed out, as ambient lighting can often do. The cows are very, very blue, but I won't complain about that too much since I've never actually encountered a ghost cow in my life, and maybe that's what they're supposed to look like. BUILD: 2.0 The author's brushwork is pretty solid. Brushes are aligned perfectly and used efficiently, with semisolids used in all the right places to keep the BSP tree from getting cut up too much. Zoning is perfect. It still has a few wrinkles that need to be ironed out, though: namely, two doorways that sometimes display HOM effects, and many instances of polygons that should be merged but are not. There are six lifts in the map, and they're agonizingly slow. All six operate on the same timing: two and a half seconds to rise, and a three-second delay before falling. Four of the lifts actually begin underwater, so I could see making those pretty slow to simulate the need to overcome all that water pressure as they rise, but they still stay open too long, and for the two lifts that are in the open air, there's no excuse. They should be at least twice as fast as they are, maybe even three times. Extremely slow lifts restrict players' movement for too long, and are very inconvenient if someone wants to use one that's already in use. Back on the happy side of things, audio is used effectively throughout the map: flickering torches, the usual "swampy" sounds in the map's various underwater areas, and a number of dynamic sounds as well. Some of these are strangely chosen –- for example, you might hear a board creak while running across a stone floor -– but the occasional moo from a beleaguered-sounding ghost cow makes up for it. There a custom music track included as well (from the original Unreal), and it suits the mood of the map nicely. Finally, we have bot pathing. In a map with such a straightforward layout, bot pathing normally wouldn't be a problem, but there are two rooms which consist of a large amount of standing water with precariously balanced planks placed over it, and pathing a situation like that can get tricky. It's especially important in this map because both of those rooms contain a control point, so a lot of the map's action takes place there. I will discuss this in more detail in the following section when we get down to talking about layout; for now, it suffices to say that the bots are not always very efficient in getting themselves out of the water once they've fallen in… or keeping themselves out of the water when they're on dry land. Alleviating this problem would require very careful placement of nodes, the addition of more translocator routes, and perhaps a bit of legerdemain with one-way paths. Aside from that, I noticed one other problem with the bots, at one of the control points. Several times as I observed a botmatch, a bot on the red team (for instance) would be standing right on top of the control point guarding it, and a bot on the opposing team would come up and tag the point for blue. However, the red bot would keep standing still or running in place, and since he was motionless, he would not reset the point for the red team. I'm not entirely sure what causes this. Perhaps some DefensePoints placed nearby to indicate defensive positions better than standing on the point itself would have helped a little. Still, for the most part, bots play pretty well. You just might have to turn your difficulty up a notch. CAST: 2.5 This is a three-point Domination map. For reference, the point names are Water Bridges, Lower Chamber, and Rotten Planks. The first three screenshots show the three control points in that order, so you can see what the surrounding areas look like. The Water Bridges point is at the center of the map, and is the most difficult to defend for any length of time. Attackers can enter from any of the room's four sides, and as you can see in the screenshot of this point, it's easy to get knocked into the water. If you do, you can regain the surface by the use of four lifts along the room's walls, or your translocator, but in either case you'll be vulnerable for a time. The planks are an especially tricky place to keep your footing because the hall to one side and above this room holds the Ripper, whose secondary fire is ideal for knocking people off the edge. The bots make liberal use of it. The second point, Lower Chamber, is slightly easier to defend. The room can be entered from three sides instead of four, so while it's very difficult to cover all the approaches at once, at least you can see them all at once. There are also four health packs nearby for a defender to replenish his life. This point is not very far from the Water Bridges point, so a lot of traffic comes from that direction. Finally, there is the Rotten Planks point, which is the easiest to hold. It's farther removed from the center of the map than the Lower Chamber is, and there are only two main approaches, both through relatively long and narrow corridors, so a defender wielding the Rocket Launcher or the Shock Rifle, the latter of which is right in the room, can be a formidable opponent. However, like the Water Bridges room, this one has the control point situated above a body of water that's easy to fall into, and there's only one corner where you can get back up top without using your translocator, so the balance of power can tip quickly. There's a third entrance to this room that comes in underwater, but it's generally not worth using unless there's a defender in there who's extremely difficult to dislodge. In that case, a little stealth and a sniper rifle will solve the problem quickly. I watched the bots play a 200-point game with three teams of three bots each (eight or nine is a good player count for this map) on Godlike, and their activity at the various points was pretty consistent with how the layout appears. The number of times each point changed hands was: Water Bridges – 279 Lower Chamber – 226 Rotten Planks – 151 As you can see, the third point doesn't see as much action as the other two, and is easier to hold, but the disparity is not nearly so great that it breaks the game. Several of the retail Domination maps have similar setups. It makes for a more varied game. TempleOfCows was originally designed as a deathmatch map, but the author says he noticed that it was a good layout for Domination as well, and he was right. Weapons and spawn points are placed very well. There are fourteen PlayerStarts, enough that spawn killing won't be a problem, and they're all placed such that wherever you happen to spawn, a decent weapon will be close by. Some of the spawn points are at the far left and right sides of the map, where you'll probably never go unless you spawn there, but you're compensated with a Minigun on one side or a Rocket Launcher on the other, and it doesn't take long to get back into the fray. This is all very good work. The only odd thing about the layout is the inclusion of a pair of teleporters, which seems singularly useless to me. As I mentioned earlier, the bots have a little trouble in the water, particularly at the Rotten Planks point. They often fall in after collecting the Shock Rifle, and sometimes while defending the point, they'll choose to defend from underwater, where they have low mobility and thus are highly vulnerable. They sometimes try to exit the water in places where it's not possible without the translocator, and they don't use the translocator when it's necessary. There are two translocator paths near the Water Bridges point that are sometimes used, but none in the Rotten Planks room. Those paths need to be available in more places, and the paths above water need to be carefully controlled to make sure the bots don't fall in the water while attempting to follow them. DefensePoints could be used to keep the bots from trying to defend while underwater. Still, even with these flaws, the bots should give you a good game. FINAL SCORE: 6.0 All in all, I was very happy with DOM-TempleOfCows. Worthy user-made Domination maps are few and far between, so if you love the Domination game type like I do, you have no reason not to download this one. If you hate Domination, download it anyway just for the ghost cows. Moooo!
Map Comments
Altimartin 03-30-2003 12:21 PM MST Rating: 7   I enjoyed playing in this map... Decent DOM map... Ill keep it in my list... Hellscrag2002 05-14-2004 05:10 PM MDT   Hi again Altimartin, I'm glad you have been enjoying my maps. This one was originally released as a DM, but seemed natural for a DOM too. EDIT: Many thanks for the review, Ironblayde. I've been away, so I didn't notice the review until a friend contacted me, but your comments are very reasonable and well thought-out. I went to a lot of trouble with the texturing, even using skew, so I'm not aware of any major misalignments. If anybody can put me out of my misery, go ahead. :) Homeslice 03-30-2003 03:12 PM MST Rating: 7   This is a very good map, Hells. It's great you came out of retirement (from mapping) to give us this cool piece of work. Manticore 05-09-2004 03:03 AM MDT Rating: 7   A well thought out domination layout loaded with tons of nostalgia value..... Shao 08-09-2004 10:32 PM MDT Rating: 7   is good :) Edit : why can't I shot on the Nalicow??? EvilSwanky 05-28-2005 04:30 PM MDT Rating: 7   Pretty nice map, I found it refreshing to finally see a good temple map with a good layout and that Unreal feeling yet being in UT. The action is oldschool, and bots don't show many problems navigating except when they are in water (they usually have those problems...). Archy and Lighting wasn't anything special, although it gave me a good feeling of where I was. All in all a slightly above average map, worth playing again and again. A must Dl for every DOM lover.