1. No slowdown whatsoever (in AGLQuake)

2. Theme and texture is nice. Wasn't sure if D2 textures would work but it's a pretty good look.

3. Unfolding arena is great, works very well.

4. Zombies are interesting. Pretty useful for keeping monsters occupied and preventing further spawns.

5. Difficulty level takes a huge jump on wave 16 with the multiple Shamblers.

6. Finish it. 

the wierd wooden boxes that come down from the ceiling around wave 12 or something. bugged out because it was crushing one of the zombies and since they're invulnerable... well... 

They are from Doom? That's immoral, unethical, illegal and did you ask id Software for permission?

I really don't care and think it looks lovely. Just could not resist posting this. 

I didn't read what you wrote fully. (Damn!) Sorry. 

http://necros.planetquake.gamespy.com/misc/ne_venic0000.jpg
http://necros.planetquake.gamespy.com/misc/ne_venic0003.jpg
http://necros.planetquake.gamespy.com/misc/ne_venic0004.jpg

hl2, sorry :\ would have prefered d3 because of far superior scripting and easier custom model importing, but lack of lightmaps is incredibly annoying. and no water... wtf. o_o

so anyway, i had this idea... why not build a true post-apocalyptic map. a map with no gameplay, and no reason other than to explore... ideally, i'd make nearly every building (except i guess key vis blockers) enterable with a lot of detail in all the rooms, and you could just go in and look and take in the deserted atmosphere.

dunno if it would really be well liked though. i'm sort of nuts about post-ap stuff. to me, the thought of moving through a completely dead and silent city is awesome but i guess to a normal player it would be boring.

any opinions? :P 

Not sure about how succeful a map can be with NO gameplay. Exploration is usually fun because there is a sense that you might discover something, and if there's nothing to discover, it gets old.

Simply dropping a bunch of collectible items would give people something to search for, and then you could say "2/50 collected" or something on the HUD.

Another idea is to put some danger into it, so there is tension as you're exploring. Maybe some ambushes or death traps or something, so you explore a bit more carefully. 

to drop a few zombies or antlions in surely?
Good idea though, I do enjoy exploring post-ap things myself, I guess thats why I enjoyed stalker so much. But put something in there to find, as Metl said, its half the fun! :) 

Siel

Hah, that's funny about the tar babies because I ALMOST used them as the minions. I'll give that a shot for the next version.


necros

Hadn't considered that about the zombies getting crushed! That should alleviate itself once I change the minion type...


All

Well, it seems to be a likable map so I'll give it a shot and try to finish it up. Thanks all! 

necros

I think your idea is cool and I've had the idea in the back of my head for years that I would LOVE an Oblivion-like world to simply explore. It would be amazing and you could just look around without real fear of dying (beyond springing traps or falling to your death or something similar).

I would still give the player a narrative though. Maybe they've gone back to their city of birth to find traces of what happened to their family after the Combine occupation or what-have-you. Give them a reason to explore. 

I wonder what could be done to make the later waves in a map more playable/survivable.

Saving is good, but makes no difference if you're surrounded by 6 Shamblers, and then you get 8 of them in the next wave.

Maybe some kind of Powerup spawn system, like, starting with a certain wave a PU would spawn everytime player health reaches 25 (on the other end of the map even).

Another one is to use the minions as Medics ? 

i'll try to work in some traditional gameplay things.

i was thinking maybe some kind of puzzles and item collection, but they would have to have a good reason to be there, not just like ravenholm's puzzles which were obviously put there.

the lack of any kind of gui scripting like d3's is going to limit what can be done though, and the generic scripting of hl2 isn't as crappy as i though, just very lame and bulky to use. i love d3 for being able to script anything directly into pseudo c++ code and not having to play games with weird ass helper entities. 

Saving is good, but makes no difference if you're surrounded by 6 Shamblers, and then you get 8 of them in the next wave.

One obvious solution would be to be surrounded by one Shambler. Then in the next wave, 2 Shamblers. Then 3 Shamblers and so on and so forth.

Having said that, I like both the power-up and medic ideas, both could give interesting tactical gameplay. 

One obvious solution would be to be surrounded by one Shambler.

Is that like the sound of one hand clapping? 

All warm and fuzzy... 

It could work but you'd really have to fill the place with tons of detail that suggest a narrative. So it could be a little bit of a detective story where you try to piece together what the city was like pre-apocalypse... 

All warm and fuzzy... and electricky and bitey? 

Claw-e as well. 

I really dig the post-apocalyptic goal you have. To me, the idea is to make the player morose and empty inside once the level is finished. 

To me, the idea is to make the player morose and empty inside once the level is finished.

What if they were like that when they started? 

 

What if they were like that when they started?

Well they can seek understanding and moral support here: http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=60218&start=143 

http://jago.pp.fi/images/UED2.jpg 

The YZ view looks pretty good - very fresh use of turquoise mesh wireframe - but I'm not really feelin the XZ view. Will the final map have a windows taskbar in it? 

To offer a more constructive criticism: Jago, digging the trendy media player running in the background, and mad props for showing an IRC client chillaxing in the taskbar there. Could do with a few more Firefox windows open maybe. But seriously, what's with the hum-drum desktop theme? Too standard, too "functional", needs more transparency - I'm just not really feelin' it, know what I'm saying? Btw what's that cool-lookin app thingy you got there in the foreground is it 3D-Maxi or Maia or something? 

but the lightbulbs floating in mid-air are slightly too cartoony.

There's that sudden small "bridge" in the walkway. Put a mass of cables and tubes below it so it is there for a reason.

HTH HAND.