DM-1on1-TheCore
Map Info
	File Name dm-1on1-thecore.zip Author Barballs Gametype UT2k4 Deathmatch Date Added 04-24-2004 File Version 1.00 File Size 7.12 mb Player Count 2-4 Map Description An Ancient ION power core, purchased by Liandri Corporation to meet the huge demand for arenas. The core itself was turned on to provide the power for the arena and little extra entertainment for the viewers! My first map, I hope it holds up to the standards. Review Rating 6.5 User Rating 8 Overall Rating 7.5
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  2.0/3 Date 05-28-2004 Build Score:  2.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  2.5/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  7.5/10 AWE: 2.0 Here we have the first offering from mapper Barballs. As its name implies, the dominant architectural feature of DM-1on1-TheCore is a monstrous generator, like an Onslaught PowerCore's bigger, meaner brother. The rest of the map is constructed around it, a three-tiered technological arena. The author has done a nice job on the architecture, giving it plenty of detail and using all kinds of things to break up large surfaces. Ceilings are outfitted with complex support structures and piping, often lit from above by small red lights. Walls and floors have grated surfaces through which similar supporting architectural features can be seen. There are some emitters used for polish as well, most of them for the electricity effect in the generator core. In one part of the map, a cracked pipe drips water into a broken section of the floor, where water has collected and spreads out in rings as the drops hit it. Steam issues from pipes and vents in various places in the map. The attention to detail is quite good. The components utilized are the usual suspects: lots of meshes from the ShipTech and Pipe_Static packages, and ShipTech and Phobos2 textures on the BSP surfaces. There are also a handful of custom meshes to accent the architecture, a decent wall section, a cool energy effect for the core itself, and a linear staircase that doesn't look any different than a BSP brush of the same type. All the static meshes used are applied skillfully, chosen and placed to believably render the environment without excess or discontinuity. The aspect of the visuals that probably needs the most work is the BSP-based geometry. The framework of the map is fine, but the details are a bit lacking. There are several flooring sections that would benefit from having trim around the edges, for instance, the Super Shield Pack platform, and the perimeter of the top of the lift shaft leading up to the regular Shield Pack. There are some brushes which look unpolished or out of place on their own, like the free-standing walls behind the Rocket Launcher, that angled light fixture on the wall near the Lightning Gun, and a jagged hole in the wall of the central room, down at the bottom of the map. That hole looks far too smooth-sided and irregularly shaped to be real. I think it should have been done with a static mesh to get a lot more detail, or left out completely. Finally, there are some texture alignment mistakes... or possibly just some odd choices; it's hard to tell sometimes. Primarily I'm referring to the Phobos2 wall textures that circle the center room, though there are some oddities elsewhere as well. I like the lighting in this map. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than I would have expected from someone who's never released a map before. There are lights in here that come close to pretty much every "major" color in the visible spectrum, which you'd think would get gaudy in a hurry, but the author's color choices work well for the most part. What's really interesting are the numerous instances of lights behind masked surfaces and holey static meshes that throw cool shadows all over the place. It does a lot to enhance the atmosphere of the arena. In fact, there are so many detailed lightmaps that they double the map's file size compared to their default resolutions. That could have been optimized somewhat in many areas, but it's a small map so it's not that important. Were I to make any changes to the lighting, I probably would have tinkered with the saturation values a little more – some are too high, and a few are too low – but they would mostly be small changes; these aren't serious offenses. I also might have softened the edges of those circular lit areas on the floors where the author used cylinder lights, just a little. BUILD: 2.0 For the most part, the author's brushwork is pretty decent. Almost everything is perfectly aligned and kept on the grid, and those few places where brushes' shape or placement was less than ideal didn't seem cause any trouble that I could see. The map's static meshes are aligned perfectly, too, so everything fits together nicely. One thing I did notice was that in areas where relatively complex shapes created from BSP appear, the author tends to use more brushes than are probably necessary. And sometimes the simpler regions could use a little more BSP work, for example to trim some rough edges as I mentioned in the preceding section. Still, overall, this aspect of the map is pretty well done. Performance should be pretty good on most machines. The author did a very thorough job of carving the map into zones; in fact it might even be slightly overkill as some of those zone portals are huge, but I couldn't say for sure without testing it, and it's not likely to make much of a difference in any event. There is still a fair level of overdraw given the map's openness in the center, and thus the fact that usually many zones are visible at once. Some places in the map probably would be good candidates for antiportals, which would have helped optimize things further, but the author hasn't included any. My framerate was generally fine, but still, every little bit helps. A fair number of emitters and even some meshes drop away when you turn down your world detail, so that will help a little if you're stuck trying to run UT2004 on an old machine. Nice work here, once again. One thing I wasn't crazy about in this area is the sound. You'd think the place would have plenty to hear with all that machinery operating, vents steaming, and so on, but there are many places in the map where sounds would be appropriate but are not included. Furthermore, many of the sounds that are included can barely be heard even if you have your music off, your volume up, and no action occurring... and some not even then. There's one easily audible sound effect that's buggy, too. The second level of the core room has two places where the floor is broken up and water has collected. Each has a ScriptedTrigger above it that plays the sound of a footstep in water (I hate that sound effect, by the way), and they're supposed to fire when a player steps in the water. However, only one of the pools has a trigger, and it fires both sounds. That means that when a player steps in that pool, a sound also plays in the pool on the other side of the map, which is pretty weird. There's also a very high re-trigger delay – six seconds – so if there are players crossing that area repeatedly (say, while fighting), the sound almost seems to occur at random times. On the happy side, the map does include custom music, a Marilyn Manson track from the film Resident Evil. It's perfect for a good deathmatch. The bots are competent in this map, the pathing reasonably efficient and effective. However, it's incomplete, and that's another thing I have to take points off for. Bots can't get to a few elevated ammo packs, the Lightning Gun, the Double Damage pickup, or a semi-hidden area (accessible via a tricky lift jump) that's got several adrenaline pills. That last is not a big deal since there's hardly a shortage of adrenaline, but the player gets a significant advantage in single-player games from the fact that bots can't reach the Double Damage. Aside from that unfortunate oversight, though, botmatches tend to go smoothly. CAST: 2.5 Immediately upon loading this map for the first time, I was reminded of the old map DM-HealPod. The big generator in the center deals death to anyone who approaches rather than restoring life, but the layout is very similar. Thus it's not the most original thing in the world, but this archetype has stood the test of time and remains a strong layout when executed well. The author has certainly managed to do that. The action of course is concentrated in the core room with its multi-tiered construction, but there are also auxiliary areas off each of its four walls where you can stock up on weapons and powerups. Even with six or eight players, those areas are numerous and extensive enough that you don't need to worry about getting killed before you have a chance to arm yourself, but there will be plenty of times when you get into a fight out there too. One of the four areas in particular is almost as large as the core room, with an open, split-level design that's appropriate for people who like having a little more space to fight in. Some people have compared this map to old abattoirs like DM-Fractal and DM-Morbias, but there's a good deal more to it than that. The layout should please people who enjoy quick matches in relatively small maps, but it has enough complexity that it won't disappoint players who generally want more strategy than you'd normally find in the aforementioned maps. The map flows pretty well, keeping players moving in and out of the peripheral areas of the map collecting items as they frag each other. The only area that really irritates me is the catwalk surrounding the generator up on the top level. Those walkways are very narrow, and with all the corners and high guard fences, it's a pain to navigate when you're in a hurry. The pit at the bottom of the core room is perhaps a little deep too, and once in awhile you might have to try twice to jump out, but it's not too bad. It's nice and balanced aside from that, with enough room to maneuver without being too open, and no areas where you have to worry about getting stuck on meshes or anything like that. Most fighting styles will find a home somewhere in here, but the Rocket Launcher was my weapon of choice for most of it. It might make a good InstaGib map, too. Items and PlayerStarts are placed very nicely. You'll always spawn outside the main room, and not far from a weapon. Most of the items are placed right along the main paths you'll be taking through the map; there isn't any of that business of hiding items in recesses and corners that can break a map's flow. The weapons – one of each in the standard deathmatch arsenal (no Redeemer) – are distributed evenly about the map so that some kind of firepower is never far away, and health and ammo are plentiful, perhaps even a little too much so in some cases. There are enough pickups to sate six or even eight players, though you really don't want to run more than four in here. A few minor points: it seems like too much of the adrenaline is concentrated at the top of the map; you can collect eleven pills in five seconds. Maybe some of those could have been moved to the second tier in the core room, since there aren't any items there as it is. Also, that semi-hidden area I mentioned before is a nice touch, but all that's up there is adrenaline, so it's not ever worth going for. It would have been nice to see a slightly better reward offered for finding the place, and breaking away from the action long enough to get there. FINAL SCORE: 6.5 I'm always telling people not to release their first maps, but occasionally an exception arises, and that's what we have here. Barballs' first offering is a very good effort. Definitely give it a try if you enjoy maps like DM-HealPod; you won't be disappointed. I expect we'll be seeing some great stuff from this author in the future!
Map Comments
sandorski 04-24-2004 05:26 PM MDT Rating: 9   Awesome DM map, Must Download! I think I played a Beta version of this one, parts of it seem kinda familiar. Great work! Manticore 04-24-2004 10:54 PM MDT Rating: 6   Classic 1-on-1 layout and gameplay. Worth a look.... Barballs 04-25-2004 06:31 AM MDT   Thank guys! :) Its my first map. I just hope anyone who downloads it likes it!! Let me know either way, because I'm starting my next map now and I dont want to make the same mistakes! =NS=sOuLs{P} 04-25-2004 12:51 PM MDT Rating: 8   hmm i like the map m8 nice work ;) concrete 05-08-2004 05:05 PM MDT Rating: 8   not totally original, it reminded me of a mix between Fractal and Healpod... but i'd much rather play a map like this than most other small circular maps... overall it seems like more of an evolution of the round multilevel dm map than anything, but it's got some original ideas in there, and there's enough room to keep it from being claustrophobic... im sure some "old school" - style players would really appreciate this map... kupoartist 05-29-2004 05:56 AM MDT Rating: 6   If only all first maps were this good :) There is some great gameplay in there, I think of it as a sort of three tiered Morbias, but narrower. This lends the arena some very good z-axis fighting, and means that the gameplay is the map's greatest asset. Graphics are a bit of a mix - some areas looks a bit too box like for my liking, and i've never been keen on those walkway meshes, but otherwise there are some nice touches. Build Quality or general looks are certainly not lacking, and the theme is executed well. I've played better maps in all areas, but it's rare to find a rough gem like this attributed to a new author. Makes you wonder what kind of output they'll have a few maps down the line... Algus 05-29-2004 07:13 PM MDT Rating: 7   It shows a good eye for detail, There's nothing of import to bewail, The layout is grand, Let's give him a hand: This mapper's first work didn't fail! BlAcKoUt 06-09-2004 10:27 PM MDT Rating: 9   i really did lvoe it. reminds me of the old days in DM-HealPod :)