DM-CTC-Eldora
Map Info
	File Name dm-ctc-eldora.zip Author Derdak2rot Gametype UT Deathmatch Date Added 01-02-2006 File Version 1.00 File Size 5.42 mb Player Count 10 Map Description Story : After the defeat of the mother queen on Napali , humans started to investigate the planet and build installations and factories . 30 years after the come of humans , skaarj tried to strikes back the planet and infiltrated some installations and underground base . build beyond the skaarj mines of Rrajigar , this factory called Eldora ( in regard to a Nali god ) used to be a tyridium traitment facility was one of the humans defense post when the skaarjs came back . Now abandonned and let fonctional , the liandri is proud to present this arena in the tournament . This map is also part of the CTC mappack volume 3 . under the initiative of Flying_Killer . dont forget to check the other maps in this pack , they are all great . Suit better with 10 players max. enjoy ! Review Rating 8 User Rating 8 Overall Rating 8
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  2.5/3 Date 02-27-2006 Build Score:  3.0/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  2.5/3 User Point:  0 Overall Score:  8/10 AWE: 2.5 I downloaded the CTC pack (all three installments of it) a few weeks ago. I've tried quite a bit of what it has to offer, but that's a lot of maps to acquire all at once, and I confess I haven't played through the whole thing. So I hadn't seen this map until it arrived in my review queue just the other day, and now I feel like I've been missing out, because this is a solid piece of work. Plenty of mappers use the industrial theme, but Derdak2rot carries it off considerably better than most. Using Hourences' always excellent texture packs, the author has constructed a believable factory enclosed within a mine. The factory segment is mostly brickwork, and if some of the texturing is a bit repetitive, it still looks excellent. The architecture is of similarly high quality, varied and believable, and accentuated with a few meshes taken from the Xidia mod. In a few places, the factory gives way to a cavernous mine, which I think looks especially cool. Its inclusion provides a welcome contrast to the factory area, and makes the whole map more interesting. Aside from one or two ninety-degree angles in the standing water that's collected on the floor, the terrain used in the caves (and outside and above the factory as well) looks very good. While the author hasn't done a ton of texture alignment on the walls of the map, the alignment on the terrain –- where it's most important –- is pretty nice, which helps a lot. Alignment errors on bricks aren't all that noticeable anyway, by comparison. The map is lit with a tasteful and familiar orange and blue theme, with some heavily saturated reds and purples scattered about in appropriate places to break things up a bit. The fog effects in the cave sections of the map are a nice touch, too. My only complaint here is that it looks washed out in places. The author has used zone lighting throughout the map to brighten it up a bit and avoid unsightly black spots, which is fine and correct, but there are some spots in the map, sometimes of significant size, where that zone lighting is the only light being applied, which results in that washed-out look. I had a couple Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade moments where I thought I was looking at a single surface, and only realized it was two when I started moving and saw the textures shift relative to one another in my view. Also, this sometimes occurs at the boundary between the factory and a cave. Since the two regions use different hues for zone lighting, when there's nothing else lighting the surfaces at the boundary between them, you end up with a perfect line right along the zone portal where the lighting suddenly changes color. Even just some floating, low-brightness lights to fuzz the transition a little and provide a hint of contrast for the surrounding surfaces would have been nice. BUILD: 3.0 Eldora is as good technically as it is visually. Even with something like a dozen terrain brushes, which are easy to cause problems with, the map's BSP is very clean. Only once in my testing did I encounter what I assume is a BSP error. I was right near the looping mover –- incidentally, what is that thing? I looked at its tag hoping for a clue, but the author called it "noobz," so now I'm even more confused. Anyway, I was near the noobz, and tried taking a shot at a bot crossing a walkway on the other side of the room. My shot passed close by the mover and struck an invisible barrier. At first I assumed the author put something there to stop people from jumping up and getting crushed by the mover, and it simply stuck out too far, but I couldn't find anything in the editor that suggests it was intentional. Still, it's a very small error, and it's the only one I found. The author did an excellent job here. Bots play the map well. They go everywhere and get everything, and don't experience any hang-ups or other defects that I was able to see. There are a bunch of LiftExits scattered around the map that don't serve any purpose, most paired up but lacking a central actor, and occasionally a LiftExit all by itself. In many cases it looks like these were intended to be jump paths but weren't completed; the author has said that he was in a bit of a hurry to complete this on time for the CTC pack deadline, so either they were intended paths that ended up unfinished, or were there for test purposes and weren't deleted. It doesn't matter much in either case. They don't hurt the bots any, and jump paths aren't really necessary anyway; most people don't play deathmatch with translocators, I think, and none of the would-be paths are worth the price of a hammer jump. Another thing I really like about this map is its use of sound. There are more than a hundred ambient sounds placed around the map, and quite a few triggered sounds as well. Sound can do so much to enhance a map's atmosphere, and the author uses it well. No matter where you go, you can't help but be aware that things are happening all around you. You may not know exactly what it is, but something's going on in this place. CAST: 2.5 Experienced players will be right at home in this map. The layout feels familiar, and most people who've been around for awhile will doubtless learn it very quickly. It has a nice degree of interconnectivity among its parts, usually with two or three levels in any particular area, which is always nice. The layout and item distribution encourages players to keep moving, and indeed, you'll need to keep moving –- the structure of the map is such that there are few if any places you can go where someone can't blindside you. I was fragged from behind many times while testing this one. Damn bots! There are really only a few small things I wasn't crazy about as far as the layout and flow are concerned. First, in one of the caves, there's a spot in the middle of the standing water that just a little too deep to run through, so if you happen to hit that spot, your character starts swimming for a sec, then pops back out of the water when he hits the edge of it. I'd have understood if the author did this by the Redeemer (which is in the other cave section), to make a player trade his speed of movement for the big gun, but it serves no purpose where it is except to annoy the unwary player who wanders into it. I think perhaps was probably done unintentionally. Second, it would be nice if the map's pair of lifts didn't stay open quite so long, particularly the one in the room with the Pulse Gun, since it's that room's only way onto the second floor. It's not horribly long as it is so this is just a minor thing, but I think two seconds at the most would be good. Finally, the point of least importance as far as I'm concerned: there are lots of narrow planks and such to traverse, and for the most part that's understandable, but I'm not a fan of the plank-crate-plank setup that's got a ninety-degree turn in the middle of it (see the fourth screenshot at right), which shows up three times in this map. It's a little awkward if you're trying to get from one floor to another and fight at the same time with that turn to negotiate, but I understand why it was done and don't have much in the way of better suggestions, so I'll just shut up and try to be careful. The full arsenal is in here, along with a lot of high-powered pickups: the Shield Belt, the Big Keg O' Health, the Double Damage and the Redeemer. The map is big enough to support all of those items -– the author recommends ten players –- though I probably would have left out the keg. It's at least in a decent spot though, behind a semi-hidden, slow-moving door that requires you to stay relatively still for a couple seconds if you want it. Actually the rest of the item placement works very well too. The author occasionally places an ammo pack in a slight recess along the walls, whereas I'd prefer them to be brought out a little bit where they can be picked up more quickly as one is circling the map, but again, that's a small gripe. FINAL SCORE: 8.0 I'm going to have to start playing the rest of the CTC maps now and see what other gems I might be missing out on! This is an excellent deathmatch map, executing a familiar theme unusually well and boasting some great gameplay. Apparently this is only the author's third deathmatch map (though he's assembled a quite extensive catalog of maps of other types), so if he's got it down this well already, I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds. This map deserves a spot on every player's hard drive. Go, download.
Map Comments
FraGnBraG 01-02-2006 04:10 PM MST Rating: 8   excellent map - great looking and great gameplay :) Erika 'Olga' Bal 01-02-2006 05:55 PM MST Rating: 8.5   Not much to say, really. This map looks and plays pretty well. Unreal theme also really rocks my socks. Die4Honor 01-02-2006 06:36 PM MST   OMG, why do all the new maps for UT look better then all the ut2004 new maps. Dear god that looks sweet. Manticore 02-23-2006 06:24 AM MST Rating: 8   Same here: good look and good gameplay.... Ironblayde 02-25-2006 10:05 PM MST Rating: 8   Excellent job! The review will be up as soon as the staff looks it over to make sure I'm not giving you an undeservedly high score. ;) cooloola 02-26-2006 12:22 PM MST Rating: 7   It looks great (but it lags a bit on my computer). Gameplay is good although it lacked weapons and ammo and it's a bit too cramped. Still it's a keeper. nELs0n 02-26-2006 05:16 PM MST Rating: 8   how could i miss this map until now? looks really good, gameplay is nice, but on the whole imo it's a bit big. and maybe it's just me but this map kinda felt like a ut2k4 map to me. i'm not quite sure why but i just did... not that it was a bad thing, just something i noticed. so again, really cool map :) Derdak2rot 03-08-2006 02:13 PM MST   thanks IronBlayde ! some good suggestions you gave , i will take notice for future maps . and thanks for the rating too :) thanks to all for the nice comments :) edit : thanks Hourences for showing the map on your site , im honored :) 3-dee 02-27-2006 04:03 PM MST Rating: 7.5   I liked it, although I am a fan of highly themed maps and this being another industrial environment..... As mentioned tho ,,, nice brush work and texture combination. Nice mixture of out and indoor environments. It looks like you have followed Hourences style of mapping, it reminds alot of rankin etc on ut2k4. Ammo was a bit scarse tho, and I do think it could have been slightly lighter in there. Apart from that, nicely done.. Agent X 03-14-2006 03:06 AM MST Rating: 9   The outdoor area is really cool! I always had trouble making outdoorsy maps.