Spec's Work (in progress)

I really like the detailed ship, and the garden in the courtyard prop thats some really nice touches!

Oh wow this is gorgeous. I don't think I have seen such level of detail even in the native maps. But boy, do you have too much free time on your hands

KissMyAxe wrote:Oh wow this is gorgeous. I don't think I have seen such level of detail even in the native maps. But boy, do you have too much free time on your hands

Wish I did. In fact, I'm not actually playing Warband anymore, nor any other games really. When I'm not learning, I'm either just talking to people or continue working on that map. Mind you, it already took me weeks.

I wonder how many hours you have put into that map so far? I think my largest map has taken over 30 hours.

Hm, no idea to be honest. Not very much time, actually, as I didn't work on it daily and usually only work on it for an hour or so at a time. Perhaps I'm still below 30 hours.

Starting to get really problematic now, though. I tried to take another vid, but the game CTDs when I try to spawn. Might not be able to finish this.

Time to make a real siege map?

C'mon Spec, I know that you know that you want to show off your maps on the siege server. Your very good!

Not exactly siege, but with that talk about some people suggesting new battle maps for official matches, I just created a heavily Nord-Town inspired Rhodok Town map.

http://de.xfire.com/video/4af97d/

The map is laid out as a infantry focussed battle map, like Nord Town. It is ensured that a large part of the map can be accessed by cavalry; cavalry is able to ride around most of the town in an 8-shape, additionally some 'dead end' areas can be accessed, but pulling out there after combat is a bit trickier.

I intend to place one teams' spawn at the castle, and the others' at the graveyard/gate area. From spawn to spawn, it's about 35-40 seconds of walking in almost a straight line. Visual contact can be made earlier. Buildings and archways as well as different height levels ensure that directly shooting from one spawn to the other is impossible, however. The castle spawn has three direct routes the players can take: Two lead up on an elevated area of the town, the third with only a slight elevation directly to the town center. The graveyard spawn too has three direct routes: Outside a small gate into the village outside, directly through the archway to the town center, or to a garden-type area that is also slightly elevated. This means both teams have direct access to high ground - accessing that high ground from the other side (from the town center) is a bit more tricky and leaves you open to attacks from archers stationed there. Graveyard-teams' elevated garden only has two paths leading towards it, one from the back (from the graveyard), and a more easily defendable one from the front (from town center). Castle-teams' elevated street can be accessed from four ways. Two at the back, two at the front. It can not be accessed by horses, making it a different type of area that will mainly be attractive to archers and infantry, as it grants great mobility and a good overview over most of the town. Due to the many access routes, however, it is less easy to defend against infantry and archers - cavalry however, as I said, can not reach that area. This hopefully will force the team that spawns on that side to use different tactics, without giving it any advantage or disadvantage over the "garden team". From the graveyard, a little village can be accessed. From there, a gate leads back into the city and towards the elevated street. A somewhat hidden siege ladder leads up onto the outer city wall. Another siege ladder within the walls also leads up there - a third one leads up to the wall from the opposite direction, from the elevated street. This means both teams, should they both rush to it, would take about the same time until their archers can be deployed on the wall (which is an important strategical position). Graveyard team has two ways to access the wall, while castle team only has one ladder leading up there; however, that one ladder is very easy to defend, and should castle team HOLD the wall, they, in turn, have at least two ways to flank the other team from.

Generally, the most important strategical location will be that wall, along with either the elevated street or garden, depending on where the teams decide to go. The garden is a lot easier to attack as cavalry and doesn't offer as much protection for infantry and archers, which means a cavalry, focussed team is best setting up their defenses there, hoping to lure the enemy into attacking that place and then surprising them with a mounted charge. An archer-heavy team should rather attempt to take the elevated street and wall as soon as possible. Flag spawns aren't decided yet, I suppose I will place one to the elevated garden (to make that place more important), one to the town square in the middle (a place that's otherwise too dangerous to hang around at), and maybe one between the wall and the elevated street, which means both teams probably have archers watching over that place, with possible cavalry support from the town center (warning though, cavalry has to pull out the same way they came in here, as they can't access the elevated street, making it a risky decision to use cavalry at that place).

Wow that is an awesome map Spec. I think judging by the video alone you have more than enough skills to join our team I am going to go ahead and make you an Associate of the guild. Keep us informed on the work you are doing! I look forward to seeing more.

Yay, thanks

I sure hope that a few clan leaders will eventually be interested in adding high quality custom maps to the official tournament map lists. The old ones do get boring, and there's no reason the community couldn't come up with stuff equally well designed as the original maps.

I agree, also some people have been inquiring about custom maps for some events, you may want to check it out.

Deaf Blind Dave wrote:I agree, also some people have been inquiring about custom maps for some events, you may want to check it out.

*cough*ROCK*cough*

Duke_Kenneth wrote:

Deaf Blind Dave wrote:I agree, also some people have been inquiring about custom maps for some events, you may want to check it out.

*cough*ROCK*cough*

*cough* Clan Gathering *cough*

Saw your map in action in the tug of war event spec, very nice work. It looked very detailed and lots of nice tricks were used to flesh it out. Keep up the great work! Is that your second map now?

Nah. It's the first map that I've done with teams playing against eachother in mind, but I have previously created many duelling themed maps which are on rotation on duel servers right now, mainly Ndition's (although I'm not the only mapper there, some of the maps were made by Snake, some by Frosty, and some by myself (usually, my maps are the ones that have rather few high fantasy elements and a lot of hidden areas, like a map with a castle tower on a mountain, which can be entered, or a desert scenery with 'underground' tunnel systems, or a beach with nearby village, little forest, a cave and a few hidden areas the entry to which can be found by following the hints in the cave) - I've also created maps for clan events for the Guard of Istiniar, such as a huge maze map that was so confusing that the round time was barely enough to reach the other end even when people had figured out the right path, along with a few very basic 'open' battle maps without any balancing in mind - simply realistic scenery that could be found in single player as well - that haven't found proper use as they are too large for duelling which is why I didn't put them on rotation at Ndition's when I was still one of the head admins there.

About the use of this map in the event - as I couldn't be there, it'd be great to know how exactly people used the different parts of the map, which areas were not used, and if the overall performance was okay (I could get rid of some plants and trees to reduce lag for future uses of that map, for instance).

Well I didn't see anyone complain about performance, and I would not know since my PC is a monster. But the map played very nicely. The time that I watched, the "defending" team used an alley to bunch up the attackers, then flanked along the wall with their archers to split the attackers in half. Once half the team was far enough away, the defenders sallied out crushing the divided team, then looped around finished off the other team. Very nice work not only by the team defending but also by the mapper since it allowed for some great tactics.

If you can post a few more of your maps for us to see, I would appreciate it. I want all mappers who have enough experience to have made 5 solid quality maps to be guild masters. Thanks!

I don't have access to the files anymore. I deleted most of them from my PC (or don't have any clue where they are if they are still there), they're on the server instead, but I'm no longer head admin at Ndition's and banned from the forums at my own request. (I'd not like to go in detail regarding that in public. Only three people in the Warband community know my reasons, as it is a very personal... issue. Be assured that I didn't break any rules or anything, and neither did anyone else, Ndition's are a great bunch of guys and I trust them, but I cut off my contact with them and wouldn't like to hurt myself by going back right now just to get some maps) If you want, you can of course contact any head admins of Ndition's (There's a stickied tournament thread at the taleworlds forums for Ndition's European Duelling Tournament, just use that to get in contact or PM someone involved in hosting it) and ask them for the .sco files and scene codes for my maps, you have my permission to test and review any of them, although some features will only work if you simply join Ndition's and test them there. If they don't believe you you have my permission, you'll have to visit the server or wait for me to create new maps, as I, right now, won't contact them. My scenes (the notable ones) are the beach one with the village and cave, the one with the castle tower on a mountain, the 'interior' one, the desert one with the red-yellow-darkish ground (wanted to update the ground texture, but didn't get to it before I left the community) and the buried buildings (note the underground area that can be accessed through the ruins; on any of my maps, stepping on pillows on the ground will generally trigger something such as a teleport), and another beach themed one with an arena that can only be accessed if an admin opens it up for you. You could of course ask an admin who knows how to do it (the newer admins probably don't; it's a portcullis that can be opened if they step on the correct pillow and use the winch, near a single house) to open it for you. That one was intended as official tournament map, but isn't used as such and rather put into rotation. Please note that all of them are duelling maps. They contain some sort of large space for people to have 1vs1 fights without obstacles, as well as pretty scenery and a lot of hidden areas and easter eggs for those who feel like exploring them, most of which invovle teleporters.

I can sadly not provide you with the maps themselves. As I said, you'll have to visit the server or ask for the files, although you'd best look at them in spectato or edit mode so you can reach the areas that are normally not possible to access without stepping on teleport pillows, which only work with our server files which we do not generally share.

Or, of course, I just create five new maps that aren't designed for Ndition's, as the above might be a bit much trouble just to see a few maps :p

Edit: Actually, you're better off not contacting them about it, that'll just start things all over again. I'll craft you five new maps.

No need really, I can tell from your current work you are more than experienced in map making and I see no reason why you would lie. I hereby grant you the title of Guild Master. Please keep up the great work and contributions to the Warband community.

I'll still deliver five maps within the next few weeks, I promise!

If you really want sure, we are about to start a new TDM server for the clan GK, if you want to donate some maps for that it would be appreciated. We are also willing to host quality siege maps on the GK siege as well if you want.

Congragulations, Spec!

Very nice work. I especially like that massive town map. Great attention to detail, especially with the ships and the market stalls.
That's usually where I have to force myself to be more creative. I'm usually a bit burnt out by decoration time though.

I'd be interested in checking out that SCO file though, and with your permission, I'd like to possibly use it in a single player capacity. You'd be given credit, naturally of course. And I'l be sure to send you a PM dropping you a link if I ever do use it in a mod.

Problem is that the map hardly even runs on my system in dx7 mode with all settings on minimum. Now, my computer isn't the best, but a lot of people would have that problem with such a map. Now for it to be usable for single player, I'd need to add AI meshes and you'd have to put bots in there, plus the outside of the town isn't decorated at all currently...

It was more of a "how far can I go" project than a map built for actually 'working', and I had to stop working on it when it started crashing. I can, of course, create a slightly smaller version of it with the same general idea, but only about half of the buildings, so I can put a few trees around the town, at least.

Edit:

Created map 1/5. People at taleworlds complained about a lack of forest-themed battle maps. Thus, I created a forest-themed battle map. Not too dense, although it still might lag a bit on low end machines if I'm unlucky.

http://de.xfire.com/video/4b51c9/

One team spawns at the beach, one in the forest. Beach might seem like a disadvantage, but both teams can quite quickly take high ground or use stealthy routes through the forest.

Wow that is bad ass. I am really liking the forest map it looks very well done for a TDM or Battle. Do you mind if GK uses your maps on our NA servers? If you have a clan or server you like I am willing to donate some of mine in exchange if you'd like.

I'm not really involved in the Warband community anymore, so I don't have much use for anything right now^^

Of course I'll gladly share any work, I'll upload the .sco and scene info of this one and my next project when the latter is finished.