CTF-Cannae
Map Info
	File Name ctf-cannae.zip Author Evilmrfrank Gametype UT Capture the Flag Date Added 04-13-2006 File Version 1.00 File Size 3.69 mb Player Count 8-12 Map Description First off your probably going to need a pretty decent pc to run it smoothly. In all it has over 5600 polygons in it. The map is set on an island in an industrial type setting, enjoy ;) Review Rating 4.5 User Rating 6.5 Overall Rating 5.5
Review
Reviewer Ironblayde Awe Score:  2.0/3 Date 04-15-2006 Build Score:  1.5/3 Review Schema Cast Score:  1.0/3 User Point:  +1 Overall Score:  5.5/10 AWE: 2.0 From the map's name, I expected it to bear some resemblance to the site of the famous Battle of Cannae, but what we get instead is a fairly typical RichRig industrial facility, with outdoor paths connecting the two sides. The bases themselves are of pretty good construction for the most part. An occasional poorly chosen texture or odd feature can be seen, but overall the bases are convincingly rendered, if rather uninteresting due to the vast number of RichRig maps out there. The cliffs which line the outdoor routes, on the other hand, are awful. The author has extruded some basic outlines in the 2D shape editor, and then broken them up a little bit by subtracting an occasional box or cone. The result is loaded with too-smooth vertical surfaces and sharp corners, and looks totally unconvincing. The map's lighting is pretty good, too. It's perhaps a little dark in some places, but the color choices and other lighting settings are all appropriate, and I like the use of cylinder lights to provide a little definition to the lights' areas of effect. What really bothers me in this department are the light box deco meshes and the coronas. The light boxes don't have their ScaleGlow settings turned down at all, which is a fairly common mistake but still an obnoxious one. They simply look too opaque to be believable. And the author has occasionally used the square light boxes on light fixtures longer than they are wide, which is also not good. As for the coronas, they're absolutely terrible. They're typically two to three times as large as they probably should be, and the author has turned their radii up so they're visible from any distance, which makes them appear even larger and too numerous. It's bad enough that it has a significant negative effect on gameplay, because it can be very difficult to see who the hell is shooting at you when you're blinded by coronas. In some places of the map, the coronas are also noticeably too far away from their corresponding light sources, which makes them look even more unnatural. Be sure to turn coronas off if you're going to play this map. BUILD: 1.5 There are quite a few BSP errors to be seen in this map. Thankfully, none of them are serious enough to disrupt gameplay too much, but neither are they so minor that you won't notice them while playing. Perhaps these could have been avoided if the author had taken a little more care with his brushwork. Most of it is on the grid, but not until you drop the grid resolution down to 2 UUs, and even then there are some objects that could have been aligned but weren't. There are a few horrid brushes that look to have been made from intersections and are far more complicated than they have to be. And this doesn't relate to BSP problems, but there are several places where coplanar polygons that should have been merged were left separate, which looks nasty. I'm sure many players will experience performance issues on the map, too. In addition to high poly/node counts in some places, most of the map isn't zoned. The author tried, but often didn't seal off the zones properly. The considerable number of oversized coronas can't be helping performance either. Many of the doors in this map use the TriggerOpenTimed state where TriggerControl probably would have been more effective. Players typically expect that a door will remain open whenever someone's standing in the doorway (or close enough to it), and closed otherwise. Doors that operate on the TriggerOpenTimed state can close on you unexpectedly if multiple people are heading through the doorway one after the other, and can cause trouble for bots. Indeed, the bots occasionally get stuck on the doors in this map, though it's not too significant a problem since there's a ton of traffic heading through those doors at all times, so a stuck bot will quickly be freed by someone else passing through. To the author: see my review of DOM-Ramses for more details if you don't understand the distinction I'm making between the two mover states here. As for the rest of the bot performance, it's adequate at best. Bots can navigate most of the map but can't reach the Redeemer. And there are DefensePoints placed in appropriate locations, but they've often been rotated to face the wrong direction, which is a ridiculous mistake. Several times I saw a bot manning a defense point facing a wall. CAST: 1.0 The layout in this map is very strange. There are two main routes, one that's extremely direct and whose surroundings are more or less symmetrical, and then another that's considerably longer and features obvious differences between the two bases. There's also a place to cross between the two, which increases an attacker's options a bit. But the short route is so short, and so direct, that I can't imagine why anyone would ever take the longer route. You can capture the flag in eight seconds, which is extremely quick, and it's pretty easy to do. A longer route has to offer some kind of advantage to compensate for the greater distance, and in this map I felt like if I tried the longer route, it would take too much time and not give me anything in return. So in my games, the majority of the map went ignored most of the time. This is definitely a Bad Thing. There are all kinds of little mistakes that detract from the flow of the map. Most of the PlayerStarts have been left facing the default direction, which means you're likely to spawn facing a wall. Again, it's a ridiculous mistake, and that brief disorientation can really cost you in a map where the flag can be captured so quickly. The author seems to have a real problem with directional actors, because the teleporters don't behave correctly either. This is extremely frustrating. Item placement adds to the problem, as health pickups and ammo packs are often relegated to the very edge of a room or a walkway, and sometimes –- like in the flag rooms -– they're stuck on little platforms so you have to jump for them instead of just picking them up as you move through the map. The item placement should have also been used as a tool to balance the different paths between the bases out a little bit; that long route is just not enticing as it is now. There are some disparities between the two sides, as well. It's considerably easier for the red team to reach the Redeemer, for example. Finally, there are some accessibility issues here. There's a room behind each flag room that has three doors which all look identical. One of the doors provides access to the long route between the bases. One opens about a fifth of the way and stops; on the red side, you can sneak under it with the translocator, but it's not a path that's intended to be used. The third door isn't a mover at all. Sometimes it's hard to remember which one is the useful one, especially when you've just spawned facing a seemingly random direction. More worryingly, the top of the map, which should be inaccessible, has not been blocked off. So you can use your translocator or the Anti-Grav Boots to go all kinds of places the author probably never intended. Each flag has an unblocked opening onto this roof area directly above it, so you can walk from your flag right to the enemy's completely unopposed. And since there are Anti-Grav Boots in the map, a flag carrier can get outside the normal play area too, and there are all kinds of places to hide. FINAL SCORE: 4.5 CTF-Cannae has above average architecture and lighting in the bases, but falls short in every other way. The gameplay is particularly bad, with many obstructions to its flow, directional actors that face the wrong direction, and an extremely boring path between the flags that renders much of the map superfluous. Future maps from this author would benefit from some testing by knowledgeable players. Pass this one by.
Map Comments
GenMoKai 04-13-2006 04:30 PM MDT   well Idren 04-14-2006 04:21 PM MDT Rating: 8.5   Awesome map! Gameplay is supurb! And it looks sexy too :) Evilmrfrank: Keep up the good work. I loved it. Didn't find anything wrong with it. Manticore 04-13-2006 09:26 PM MDT Rating: 4.5   BSP errors. Poor framerates. CTF gameplay pathing that seems to have no logic at all. _Reciprocity 04-14-2006 12:46 AM MDT Rating: 6   I found this map to be only above-average because of the glaring errors such as oversaturated coronas and texture misalignments and also because of gameplay hitches like the dead ends around the shock rifle and the fact that the RL and shieldbelt are about 10 seconds away from eachother. Plus, there's an alternate path that's hardly ever touched which is a shame as that's where the better part of this two forts game is to be had. Appearantly an experienced mapper in the looks department but needs a little more work with the level flow. Oh and definitely stop relying on 2d shape editor extrusions for your terrain. Please take the time and effort to contruct some believable land. Evilmrfrank 04-14-2006 10:28 AM MDT   Idren: Thanks, glad you liked it:) Manticore: There are only two bsp errors that I am aware of and they aren't really a problem as they arent in the way and I have to disagree with the gameplay comment, nearly everyone I have showed this to thought game play was amazing and very fast. _Reciprocity: I admit I did go a bit wacky with the coronas lol, I did turn them down a bit before I released the map. I worked extremely hard to make sure there werent any texture misalignments, there area few along the rock walls I noticed but other then that I cant see what your talking about. There are absolutely no dead ends what so ever..... The Rocket Launcher and Shield belt are pretty close but that really doesnt matter, the rocket launcher isnt even on the same floor as the shieldbelt. I'm aware of the alternate path, had a bit of difficulty with that. If you play the map more youll notice the bots do take the other paths but its not as often as they should. I did not rely only on the 2d shape editor for terrain. Both of my beach scenes used the terrain editor. The only reason I did not use it to make the ground seem more real in the rest of the level is it would kinda slow game play and would probably cause a bit more of a slowdown.... cooloola 04-14-2006 02:45 PM MDT   The Terrain looks horrid. There are a handful of light greenings. The layout isn't well thought out since you have the boring quick route and the more fun long route. But the hell is gonna tkae the long route when you can cap a flag under 30 secs using the quick dull route. next time try making the paths between the bases a bit more balanced. Z-axis is unexistent. Item placement could be tweaked for instance mybe moving the shield belt in the middle of the alternate route could help disperse the flow. Though archi and lighting in the buildings is quite good. I won't score it cuz i feel you can do much better