DOM-Parallel
Map Info
	File Name dom-parallel.zip Author Innominate Gametype UT2k4 Double Domination Date Added 06-06-2004 File Version 1.00 File Size 1.46 mb Player Count 6 - 12 Map Description Pinned face to face inside an ancient pyramid with two DOM points parallel to one another. Review Rating 3 User Rating 6 Overall Rating 4.0
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  1.0/3 Date 06-11-2004 Build Score:  1.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  1.0/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  4.0/10 AWE: 1.0 DOM-Parallel –- a misnomer, by the way, since it's impossible by definition for two points to be parallel to one another –- comprises five rectangular rooms arrayed in a cross formation and decorated in standard Egyptian style. I'm thoroughly sick of Egyptian maps. I can stomach them if the style is executed unusually well, or if a map adds something new to this tired theme, but this map comes up far short on both counts. The BSP geometry is poorly done; it tends to either be very blocky or have very acute points, like the triangular openings in the walls of the spawn rooms, or especially the hollow, truncated pyramid surrounding Domination Point B. Such things would probably look odd in any theme, but it's especially strange considering that they're all made of brick. Those kind of edges would corrode easily even under light abuse. Those are the kinds of things you need to consider if you don’t want to end up with architecture that doesn't look real. The static meshes used are the standard Egyptian meshes that we've all seen plenty of times by now, and they can't disguise the plainness of the architecture. The author has employed meshes for doorways, statues, staircases, and pillars, but rather than redeeming the poor architecture, the juxtaposition of these high-detail meshes with the map's boxy framework makes those shortcomings all the more obvious. The meshes are sometimes used incorrectly as well. The most obvious instance of this is near Domination Point A, where the author has attempted to liven up his unornamented brick walls with the old trick of having some bricks missing from the wall, shown half-buried in the sand below instead. There are three huge problems with this. First, the holes in the wall are considerably larger than the brick size shown on the wall texture. Sometimes the holes aren't even oriented properly! So it doesn't look like there are bricks missing; it looks like inexplicable rectangular holes have been carved into the wall. Second, the bricks down in the sand don't match the dimensions of the hole, nor do they match the dimensions of the bricks on the wall texture. Third, the holes left in the wall are textured with some random environment map, so they appear totally black, except when viewed from certain angles, in which case they fill with a mysterious light. Not good. Texturing and lighting are both lacking as well. Almost all of the BSP surfaces –- walls, floors, and ceilings alike –- use the same bricks, and there are a great many alignment mistakes. The lighting is bland; the author did make some effort to put lights where light sources appear in the map, but there are also sources that shouldn't be acting as such (like the phosphorescent banners in the spawn rooms), and a ton of white lights without matching sources, so most of the map's lighting is colorless. The room holding Domination Point A is a bit different. It's the only one of the map's five rooms that has an open ceiling, and you can see the building's huge exterior against a starry sky. The building mesh looks horrible because it's unlit, which is especially strange since the sky should be casting very little light. It shouldn't even be in the skybox to begin with, since the building is supposedly so close to the player's point of view. BUILD: 1.0 The author needs to improve his brushwork. Aside from a few of the map's most basic brushes, most of the BSP work in this map is off the grid. That fact hasn't caused any significant BSP holes that I saw, which is good, but there are several places where you can see minuscule cracks in the walls, where two brushes don't quite line up properly because the author neglected to use the grid. Some cracks exist between BSP surfaces and static meshes as well, particularly in doorways. The zoning was well done for the most part, except for one portal (between the center room and the room that holds Domination Point B) that doesn't work because the author sized it to seal the gap left by both BSP and static meshes, rather than the gap defined by BSP alone, which is considerably larger. The small building enclosing Domination Point A could have been made a separate zone as well. Finally, there's one place where you can jump outside of the normal play area, behind Domination Point A. It's not a problem since you'll never get out there without trying to do so, but it's something the author should watch out for in the future. Bot performance is mediocre in this map, as the pathing is restricted to a simple network of regular PathNodes. The only other pathing tools included are several ShootSpots, which are supposed to tell bots where to shoot from in a Bombing Run game. Did this map begin its life as a BR arena? Whatever the answer to that mystery may be, the ShootSpots don't negatively impact the pathing, so they're just an oddity. Anyway, bots generally get around well enough, but there are no paths set up for the numerous places where they could double-jump across a wide gap, or dodge up a steep slope. There aren't any scripts serving as defense points either. Also, the paths leading into the small building that houses Domination Point A are horrible. There are no paths that cut in sideways; bots must approach the entrance head-on from about 1,000 UUs out, making them easy targets for defenders. This also means that a bot who enters the room from one of the side entrances, particularly the one nearest the red spawn room, must go far out of his way to reach the Domination point, instead of taking a shortest-line path. Finally, the bots can't access the Super Shield Pack, the Double Damage, or one of the three standard Shield Packs. The first two would require paths for jumps, and the third is not part of the path network because the pickup base is buried under the floor, although the pickup itself is visible when it spawns. One last point: There's no sound in the map. Ambient sounds are an important part of creating atmosphere; without them, a map feels dead. Don't forget this next time! CAST: 1.0 This map's overly simple layout gets tiresome before long. As I've mentioned, the map consists of five rooms arrayed in a cross. One pair of rooms facing one another across the center serve as spawn rooms, and the other pair hold the Domination points. The central room has a cross-shaped walkway at ground level, and an underwater level below. The underwater area is of course accessible by simply jumping off the walkway, but each spawn room has one-way teleporters that will take you there as well. You can surface at any of the central room's four corners, where short corridors will take you into one of the Domination point rooms from the side. Domination Point A isn't pretty. It's in the open-air room, inside of a small building that sits in the sand. The building can be entered by two paths: through the front door, or through a hole in the roof at the rear. The roof can be accessed via staircases from outside, and via a lift from inside. Bots almost always go for the front door; combine that with the fact that their pathing makes them necessarily vulnerable as they're doing so, as I mentioned above, and the result is that playing defense here is a trivial task. To make matters worse, the Super Shield Pack and Double Damage are in this room, right next to one another, so defenders will be formidably armed. Human defenders, anyway. Bots won't go for these pickups; you need a shield jump to reach them, and the author didn't accommodate that in his pathing. Domination Point B is better, though I'm still not crazy about it. It stands on a truncated pyramid, the front of which has a staircase so steep it's practically a ladder. There is also a raised walkway around the perimeter of the room which leads onto the platform with the Domination point from the back of the room. It's a very simple room, and it gets dull quickly, particularly against bots. The Domination point can be reached by dodging up the sides or back of the pyramid, or by double-jumping from the perimeter walkway, but the bots don't do either of those things, so all you have to do is defend the staircase. Item placement is straightforward, with some oddities. Each spawn room has a Minigun, Link Gun, and Shock Rifle, plus ammo for each. The underwater area in the center of the map has the more powerful Flak Cannon and Rocket Launcher... but most of the map is too open for flak to be really useful, and I didn't bother with the rockets much, either. The Minigun and Shock Rifle were my weapons of choice. There's also an Ion Painter underwater, which is extremely out of place, because it's useless in most of the map. You can only use it in one of the map's five rooms, since it's the only one with an open ceiling, and even then, you can't get it to strike inside where the Domination point is, so it's not going to dislodge the defenders for you. You might be able to use it on defense, but then, that room was already too easy to defend. The last thing of note is that there are health, adrenaline, and ammo pickups on either side of Domination Point A, but they're stuffed into tiny recesses that you have to crouch to get into. I thought that was rather irritating. FINAL SCORE: 3.0 The author has stated that this is his first effort with UnrealEd, basically a map for testing the things he's learned thus far. Viewed in that light, it's really not a bad map. Judged against the better Double Domination maps out there, though, DOM-Parallel doesn't fare well. It's too bad since there really aren't enough maps for this game type. Here's hoping that the author returns with another, better DOM map once he gets a little more comfortable with the editor.
Map Comments
sandorski 06-07-2004 12:04 AM MDT Rating: 7   Good DOM map. If you like DOM, this is worth the download. [WoD]Mephisto 06-13-2004 06:40 PM MDT Rating: 4   a 7...? this map is way too boxy, you exit one big box and enter another. There's hardly any decoration. It just feels too much like a quickly made UT1 map. It doesnt even have an original theme, cuz the egyptian theme is already overdone in the original maps. It looked a bit like how BR-Anubis wouldve looked after 10 minutes of construction. Also, gameplay seriously lacks. I played with only bots, and although the bots know how to find the control points, they have no chance of ever getting it. Just spray the entrance with shock combo's or rockets and A is one of the most easy to defend control points i've ever seen. A DOM map really need more challange then this. [edit:] i know DarkSideOfTheMoon sucks, i kept it for about a month on my own disc before putting it up here, cuz i didnt think it was worth being here using up NC's HD space. I finally decided to release it anyway because someone might like low-grav maps. Thanks for giving the maps a fair rating though, i can still remember someone giving Moonlight a 2 because i had no good comments at all about his first map... i hope you can see now i was right about this map, now the reviewer gave it a 3 too... good luck with the next one though, everyone's first map is his worst. And really, my first map was worse then this, so i expect more from the next one ;) Innominate 06-10-2004 04:19 PM MDT   Well this is my first map and it was only a test map so a lot of thought weren't put into it (that comment is in the ReadMe), but I think the gameplay is pretty fun and I think Sandorski agrees. Ironic how you criticized me on my map being too boxy when you're the creator of ONS-DarkSideOfTheMoon, a map which has a base of plain corridors and extremely boxy. Your ONS-Moonlight doesn't even have a base. Kind of hypocritical don't you think? Ironblayde 06-11-2004 11:16 PM MDT   I wouldn't call it hypocritical, Innominate. One can point out flaws in another's map even if he's made the same mistakes himself. It's easier to a-s-s-e-s-s how well something has been done than it is to do it oneself. Gods know I have a ton of trouble with architecture and layout in my own struggles with UnrealEd. Anyway, thanks for the map, and I hope the review draws your attention to a few things to remember for next time. DOM maps may not draw a lot of comments around here, but they do tend to ensure a relatively quick review. :) It's nice to get a chance to look at something other than DM and CTF. (And ONS, but I haven't reviewed any of those yet.) (EDIT: Bloody language filter! Grrrrrrrrrr!) rocketeer 06-12-2004 01:15 PM MDT Rating: 5   I am not a huge fan of double domination but it is a great game type when I am in the mood for it. This is not a bad nor is it the best map I have seen. Remember to put the scripts where they belong like the reviewer pointed out. One thing that I really have to give credit to Epic for is the scripting for double domination. I consider it to be the best bot played game type in UT2K4. Bots really can show there way around the maps if correctly setup. The sounds in my opinion do make a difference but I always have a custom music track blasting so I did not really notice the omission of this until I replayed the map after reading the review. Sure enough there is something missing in the environment. Sounds do tend to make a difference even if they are very minimal. Keep trying and I hope to see more continued map work from ya. Good luck. The_Atomic_Duck 07-15-2004 08:56 PM MDT Rating: 8   hey man thanks alot for commenting on my map rat race, it really encouraged me to make better maps and to really think about what i put into my maps, i really like your maps to they are realy fun to play, if u want u can help me out more by giving me some tips if u want, but just letting u know thatnks for commenting