CTF-DesertStorm_LE102
Map Info
	File Name ctf-desertstorm_le102.zip Author gti Gametype UT Capture the Flag Date Added 03-16-2004 File Version 1.00 File Size 250 kb Player Count 8-16 Map Description It is a fun map, not well made,but it is a really fun map to play online, against bots it is not so good due to the fact it hasn't any path nodes =( (i just started map making, i put my maps here to get critics so i can improve) Review Rating 1 User Rating 7 Overall Rating 2.0
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  0.5/3 Date 05-25-2004 Build Score:  0.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  0.5/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  2.0/10 AWE: 0.5 Here we have an Egyptian-themed map that's about as attractive as Anne Ramsey in Throw Mama From the Train. It looks like a cheap wooden model rather than an actual location, with its architectural components placed so haphazardly that there's hardly an intersection between two brushes without an attendant gap where surfaces should join smoothly, a protrusion from a surface that should be unbroken, or simply a gross mismatch in dimensions. Walls are too thin, the obligatory pyramids float above the ground and have all kinds of holes in them, and the pillars look like obese crayons. The best that can be said about the texturing is that at least there are no bright particle effects slapped onto the walls, although there is a ridiculous skyline texture used on the ceiling of the main room. Most rooms have the same texture used for walls, floor, and ceiling, so there's hardly anything to get excited about. The flag bases have squares of solid red or blue instead of the team symbols. Nothing is aligned anywhere, not surprisingly. There are no visible light sources either; the light just seems to come out of the air. At least it's not green. BUILD: 0.0 The author's brushwork is awful. Nothing seems to line up the way it should. Most of the brushes do stay on the grid... if you set your grid resolution to 1 UU. Every single brush was created directly from the basic brushbuilders, with no vertex editing at all. Even those few ramps the map contains are boxes rotated into place, so their corners stick out farther than they should and create yet more brush alignment errors. These sloppy techniques leave a number of BSP holes in the map, despite its simplicity. Brushwork is also extremely wasteful at times. For example, in the first review screenshot, you can see a long wall with four sniper windows and a doorway missing from it. The simplest (and I would think the most obvious) way to do this is with six brushes: one additive to create the wall, and five subtractive to create the openings. The author used 41 brushes, a ludicrous collection of boxes of varying sizes. I've never seen anything like it. Most of the map I can see being a legitimate effort at a first map, but that wall... I demand that the author supply the NaliCity staff with a case of whatever he was drinking when he did that. Normally, I'd give a half or a full point here just because the map runs, but alas, the build is unfinished. There's no zoning at all. There's no music. There's no screenshot. There aren't even any pathnodes, and that's what hurts the most. Even if he didn't want to spend a lot of time on it, setting up a half-decent network of nodes for the bots to follow in this map would have taken no more than five minutes. And if not that, an automatically generated network would be better than nothing. But nothing is what the author gave us, and that's what I'm giving him in return. CAST: 0.5 The map's layout is actually not bad for a small CTF map, but any discussion of gameplay is purely theoretical. You can't play it with bots, because there aren't any nodes. You'll probably never see it on a server, so that rules out online play. The only time you'd really get to play a proper game with this map is if you ran it on a LAN, or on a server you run, and in those cases there are thousands of far better maps to choose from. That makes it hard to comment here, since I couldn't really play the damn thing. I'll give it half a point because the layout isn't horrible, but the simple fact is that the map isn't finished. FINAL SCORE: 1.0 Unless you're that rara avis who seems to have a natural gift for mapping right from the start, it's generally not a good idea to release your first effort, as this map demonstrates perfectly. And if you must release it, at least finish it first. Before uploading it anywhere, get thee to the UnrealWiki and read the mapper's checklist. To the author: Don't give up -– mapping takes time to learn –- but try to make sure your efforts are a little more polished before releasing them publicly.
Map Comments
xilas 03-17-2004 12:49 PM MST Rating: 10   oh yeah, congratulations.. thas a cool map! i have enjoied it! people try it, is very good! F/*NuKe 03-17-2004 01:11 PM MST Rating: 9   Very good idd! Nice work GTi ;) Poison 03-17-2004 01:16 PM MST Rating: 10   What a big work !! Weel done GTi keep on good work dude :) This map it's excelent :P Keep on m/ XepptizZ 03-17-2004 01:32 PM MST Rating: 4   It may be fun, but I look at the graphs, Sorry, Not bad for a first, but to all the noobs: learn to use the @d-Shape Editor. Most mappers hardly use the basic shapes. You've many things to improve so. My best of luck. Greetz XepptizZ O, hold on. Always use supportbeams, it makes it feel more "real" gti 03-17-2004 01:51 PM MST   XepptizZ tkz for the critic, about de 2d shpa editor i learn about it after i have done this map, i have done 1 more map after this and i used that, about the beams you are right, next time it will be better, i will improve Jez 04-13-2004 03:21 PM MDT Rating: 1   A 10 for a first map? Be reasonable people. Sheesh. There are no seperate categories for newcomers and veterans, so a score should reflect the overall quality of the map. I'm not an author, but I certainly would *not* appreciate being patronised with ridiculously high scores for a first attempt.