DOM-Joan
Map Info
	File Name dom-joan.zip Author Scott Hrivnak Gametype UT2k4 Double Domination Date Added 06-19-2004 File Version 1.00 File Size 1.64 mb Player Count 10-30 Map Description Set in a dark field on a moon of Saturn that was originally on Earth. Metorites from Saturn's Ring fly through the atmosphere nonstop. Dead body still lingere in the arena. This is my first UT2k4 level, was intended to be my first UT2k3 level but then I got 2k4. Review Rating 6 User Rating 6 Overall Rating 6
Review
Reviewer Ice-Dancer Awe Score:  2.5/3 Date 01-19-2005 Build Score:  2.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  1.5/3 User Point:  0 Overall Score:  6/10 DOM-Joan by Scott Hrivnak Ancient human meeting place named after their Goddess Joan, the goddess of love and beauty. After millennia passed, Liandri found the meeting place. Enraged Gen Mo'Kai upset with Liandri for never giving them land for their own, claimed the land for their own and turned it into their own meeting place, but soon tensions between the Gen Mo'Kai and Liandri flared and Liandri forced the Gen Mo'Kai out, and Liandri wanting to test new transportation technology, turned it into an arena. Clean up crews try to do their best to remove fallen bodies, but some still remain. Will your body be one to remain in this ancient arena of beauty? First Thoughts Well, this is a Double Domination map for UT2004. Its set in a dark forest, it can be very dark in some places, but it all adds up to the theme. It’s mostly built from static meshes, but that, turns out, to be no bad thing for this map, it works well, framerate is fine. AWE Well, the skybox on this is amazing, it works really well, giving the map a magical feeling, using a skyline mesh really worked well for this map, and the shooting stars in the skybox…well, what can I say, brilliant use there. Now the lighting, is quite dark, yes it builds up the theme and effect, but when you can’t see a thing in some parts of the map where you need to, it should be a little brighter. The placement of the corpses is done excellently, it really boosts the maps themes, you are running around heading towards the DOM point, and you see a dead marine in power armor hanging limply from the walkway… what is this place… what lives in these dark forests… It is a good idea, and definitely helps the map. Attention to detail seems very strong, as by the rocket launcher pickup, there appears to me some sort of Gen Mo'Kai shrine. Fog is also done well, not so much that you can’t see a thing, but enough to, once again, give the map, a theme boost. What few textures there are, are aligned. The staticmeshes where chosen well to blend together. The terrain texture seems a bit repetitive and seems as if it could do with more scaling to it, luckily for the map, due to the dark lighting, you are unable to see this most of the time. The overall visual impact of the map is very well done, and it’s a nice one to run around in, if you loved DM-TokaraForest, then you are going to love this. BUILD As I said before, nearly the whole map is built from static meshes, it works well in this case, but I know that some mappers look down on this, but I think it works well in this case. It’s essentially the same sort of style as TokaraForest in the editor, lots of meshes, using brushes just to create the basic space that the map will take place in. Some of the meshes can be a bit difficult to move on sometimes. I found no HOM’s or BSP holes at all in this map, which is always a good sign. Sound is there, but its just a single sound which covers the entire radius of the map, the twittering of birds, they don’t really seem to fit into the same theme that the rest of the map creates, the rest of the map seems to be very mysterious, with dark secrets, whereas the birds would probably be happier in a warm, sunny, island map. No movers exist in this map. Bots are pathed, and mostly move around, although sometimes, they will just stay where they spawned, or hang around the armor. CAST Well, the map plays well, I enjoyed playing it with the bots, the map handles well, the 2 domination points are in different parts of the valley, connected by only 2 routes, at different ends of the map, one is a very narrow rocky undercut of the cliff, the other is a large archway, or there is an alternative route over the cliff to find the redeemer, but that route involves a lot of double jumping, and you may get stuck on the meshes (bots will not take this route, and are not pathed to either). The map has a pretty good FPS, which makes for better gameplay. The map has 22 playerstarts, which is more than enough for a map this size, but that’s a lot better than not enough, although the author suggests 10-30, in the UT2004 map choice screen, which is strange as there are not even enough playerstarts for that many players. There are a lot of adrenaline and mini health pickups around the walkways. Weapons are varied, and in good locations, although I don’t think the redeemer was really necessary, also, the flak seems very trivial to get, you see it on a rock, but have to first find your way up the walkway, all along in a loop, back to the flak, then do a dodge or double jump onto the rock, and even then, you might miss it and have to try again. Now the bot movement on this map, is somewhat a letdown, because of the location of the dom points, (on the walkways) the bots have to find a way up, which they sometimes don’t seem to be able to do, they will get there easy enough if they find their way onto the walkways, but if they are on the ground, they struggle. The location of the DOM monitors worked well too I think, I found myself using them a lot more than in any other map, most maps they are either not there, or just really hard to spot. They also seemed to fit with the storyline about how Liandri altered stuff and tested their things. Final Vedict If you are going to try this one, it should kick ass online, for offline I suggest turning the AI settings up a few notches, and whether you play it online or offline, you might want to bring your brightness up a bit. It’s a good map, and has a very good theme, but bots are a bit of a letdown, a version 2 with fixed bots, and a little brighter would be a kick ass map. AWE – 2.5 BUILD – 2.0 CAST – 1.5
Map Comments
Wildman 06-19-2004 11:40 AM MDT Rating: 4   The layout on this map is pretty good, but is has a couple of severe problems. First, it is much too dark. Yes, it is a night setting, but some places are absolutely black, so some sort of ambient light is needed to brighten those areas. The other problem is the bots do not perform well on this map at all. If those two areas were addressed, this would get a higher rating. Scott Hrivnak 06-20-2004 09:48 PM MDT   I tried and tried but couldnt get the bots to work well on lower difficulties, but on higher and translocator enabled, they perform better. Also the screenshots show an orange lighting for sky and fog, wth, I set those to blue when I released it. sandorski 07-07-2004 11:55 PM MDT Rating: 4   Ya, too dark, but not a bad map. Something that might help with the bots: Try adding your Pickups in a more spreadout way. Bots are attracted towards Pickups, so you can use them to get your bots moving. SilverHairDevil 07-25-2004 11:36 AM MDT Rating: 7.5   Okay, dark maps: The map is dark for a reason - it's dusk! If you make a nightime map it has to be dark! The mapper made this to be dark. If it wasn't this dark it would lose it's cool eerie "feel." Just think, if it was bright it would look like some Happy Tree Friends forest or something. Lesson: Dark CAN be good. Nillian 01-21-2005 07:50 AM MST Rating: 6.5   I played this map, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I didn't test the bots as they've already been commented on and I don't like playing with bots anyhow. There are a couple of things I'd like to say. First, I don't agree that the map is too dark. I know people seem to hate dark maps but I think it really adds to the atmosphere in this case. Perhaps an ambient lighting of around 4-16 in the level properties would help to remove the pitch black areas but I think this is negligible. Also, the comment about the flak cannon is, IMO, wrong. It wasn't hard to get to at all, a simple double-jump is all that's needed, and being a "high-level" weapon I think this is an adequate Risk-vs-Reward. I did notice a little bug in the terrain, where you can fall out of the map and into the main subraction. It is behind the link gun near domination point B. If you walk around behind it you should see what I mean. This is minor though. All in all, a very good map, pretty gorgeous to look at and from the layout it seems as though it will be fun online. Can't wait to host a game with some friends and frag em to bits :D I look forward to your next release :-) G.Lecter 01-21-2005 02:29 PM MST Rating: 6   Not good: - I like lighting contrasts, but I feel this map too dark. My screen sometimes look almost black. - The visuals are OK, but I feel the terrain a little spiky. - The tree's leaves have collision & I get stuck sometimes. - The map is really too big for DoubleDomination. There is a long way from DOMA to DOMB. Players tend to focus around those points and I often run alone through the rest of the map. - The walkways give a big advantage to defenders. It's impossible dodging on them. - I think the bot pathing is a bit simple. There is a jumpad that don't work well. A bot jumped on the FlakCannon stone and it did not know how to get the floor. Good: - It's not completely symetrical (but the sides could have been more different) - There are few pickups around the DOM points (in my opinion, it would have been better putting the ShockRifles in other place farther the points...) - Good work, especially if it's the author's first map. My score is 5. I give an extra point because now there are very few DOM mappers... Keep mapping DOM, Scott T0mbr41d3r 01-27-2005 01:07 PM MST Rating: 6.5   Took me ages to find 1 of the Domination points and havent even found the other one still. Either its really big or just really hard to find them. The bots didnt seem to have a real clue what they should do either. I liked the textures though, the graphics of the map look really good.