[RELEASE] - Teamjungle Beta 1

[MoP]

Hello!

Long time since I've posted much around here ... some people were talking about custom maps on IRC a couple of weeks ago so I decided to try and pull together a "first playable" of something I've had lying around for a while.

This is "Teamjungle", a single-objective document grab/delivery map. Strogg are attacking, GDF defend the documents.
The layout is based around an original Action Quake 2 map called "teamjungle" by timm from nearly 10 years ago! I always loved that map and wanted to try and recreate it in ETQW as an objective mission rather than the original team deathmatch.

It's quite small for ETQW standards, I'd estimate 4v4 will be the best player count for this, although I haven't tested for team sizes at all. For all I know it plays like complete rubbish!


Known issues:

• It's a first playable! Everything is blockout, and can easily be changed. This map might very well be no fun at all! Hopefully with your help I can make it fun
• While the respawn times are set in script, I currently don't know how to force the map timer to be shorter than 20 minutes. This map should probably have a 5-10 minute time limit since it's so small, although obviously this will depend on testing.
• There are no winning/losing cameras set up, so the view will just be your last direction on game end.
• There's a small chance you might be able to fall out of the level if you try hard enough. I think I've clipped everything obvious off but you never know...

Overview screenshot:


Objective "grab" point:


Objective "deliver" point:


More screenshots here:
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00034.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00035.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00036.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00037.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00038.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00039.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00040.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00041.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00042.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00043.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00044.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00045.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00046.jpg
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle/shot00047.jpg


Download link (20mb):
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle...mjungle_b1.pk4


The megatexture is included in this PK4, if you want to install it manually then you will need to extract "teamjungle_lit.dat" from the "megatextures" folder in the PK4 and put it in the "base/megatextures" folder, renamed to "teamjungle_lit.mega".
It's included in this fashion so that ETQWPro, QWTA and similar mods can auto-download and extract it. You should only need to manually extract it if you're trying it on vanilla base ETQW.


I'd love it if Scrupus or someone with access to a good server would be able to organise some sort of playtest, we'd only need 6-10 people. I should be available all day today, just PM me here, reply to this thread, or come to #etqwmods on QuakeNet IRC!


Disclaimer: This is a 100% personal project, it is not an official map, and is not affiliated with Splash Damage in any way.

[TAW_Feanor]

Thanks for the map, TAW will run some tests and post some demos for you by this Thursday.

For those who want to play on this map we will also be hosting it on TAW's public custom map server, which is also pro ranked. Here is the IP: 70.32.38.218:27734

[MoP]

Awesome, thanks.

Hopefully you guys will enjoy it, or if not, be able to point out why it sucks and where it could be improved

[Scrupus]

Wow, what a great surprise - both to see you again, and even releasing a new map!!!

I'll install it asap, and let you know when it's up - should be ready for playtest for todays nirvana, yay! (we'll also test another new map today, so that's 2 brand new maps in one week - is is xmas already??

[Scrupus]

Server is loaded with the new map, I'll just take a quick dinner and then ready for playtest

Also created a stopwatch rotation with the most recent/active map projects: abusir, teamjungle, consite, and viomine

[MoP]

Weird, I don't think those can be from teamjungle, it barely has any mapobject models at all. It's basically a big terrain model with a plane model, a bit of brushwork and some tree models.

I definitely don't have any "hanging industrial lights" or "server01" models in the map!

Those warnings could be coming from somewhere else. Usually it'd be from a custom map with lots of mapobjects in which aren't used as dynamic collision in retail ETQW - so while the model files are in the SDK, if the collision is not compiled into the world (using "mergecm" "1" key on the model static entities), then they'll try to use dynamic collision from the LWO file itself.

Looks like someone will need to either make collision inline from some objects, or add those LWO files from the SDK to their map's PK4.

[Scrupus]

MoP, you're right - it's from abusir, not teamjungle

Sorry for the confusion, I was a bit to quick when reading those logs

Took a quick look at jungle before dinner, wonderful terrain and megatexture!

Going online for some playtesting now!

[MoP]

Important! I have just released an updated download which fixes the broken playzone mask, allowing people to heal and deploy stuff properly again. Thanks to Chris for pointing this out.

Please download this new pack:
http://www.greveson.co.uk/teamjungle...mjungle_b1.pk4

[LighT_Sh4v0r]

Woot, where's Quakejoe???
New maps from SplashDamage!

[MoP]

OK, after testing with 2v2, 3v3 and finally 4v4 players on the Sunday Night Custom Map Nirvana server (thanks Scrupus), I have decided it's off to a pretty good start.
I had fun, and most of the movement was pretty good. I think all but one round finished with Strogg winning in just under 10 minutes, so I think 10 minutes will be a good overall map time limit to set.

Here are the main issues I know about and will fix along with miscellaneous small improvements here and there.

• Objective has no voice-over, so it's hard to tell when someone's taken/returned the objective.
• Objective capture should be a 3- to 5-second transmit time rather than an instant grab. This should make it slightly harder for Strogg who basically might as well have won as soon as they're halfway back to base since it's hard to catch up and kill them after that.
• I might try making GDF a 15-second spawn and Strogg a 20-second spawn. Right now 10 seconds for GDF seems too fast to me, but I don't think Strogg should spawn as fast as GDF (since it's currently 15 seconds for Strogg).
• There's a Strogg spawn point or two located in a deploy spot. I might compensate by having the Strogg appear to spawn from the Domination Hub up the cliff so they just fall to the ground, similar to how the GDF spawn.
• Stuck spot and poor movement behind the plane, under the tail and wings.

If anyone else came across issues that I might have missed here, please reply detailing what you think is wrong and how it could be fixed, and if you could provide screenshots of trouble areas if necessary, that'd be great.

Cheers!

[[TFA]Violator]

Had a good romp on this tonight. The terrain is of course excellent I did notice a couple of things:

The objective text is the wrong way round in the limbo menu.
Should really stop gdf putting tripmines on the obj by moving it away from the edge of the boxes (though it is fun watching people run round with lasers coming out of their heads )

Other than that it was great fun to play for a 1st version - nice 1

[[]v[]]

I enjoyed it.
I was able to land on the outside high terrain when spawning as gdf and got an unfair advantage.
The gdf spawn might do wth bringing back a touch.
Not decided wether deployables are good or not for this.
Can we have a ridiculus siren for when the docs are taken, just for comedy effect.

[Donnovan]

Played it right now with TAW members, 2x2. Was a lot fun.

- Hard to move near the plane, you need to take care or you get stuck and die, may be if we had some more liberty to move there

- transmition time is nice

- We played two round, first strogg won with more than 10 minutes, second strogg won with less than 10 minutes.

Congratulations! I think i have played this map in Action Quake for Quake 2!

License for a image, 45 Kbytes.

[Scrupus]

Yeah fun map, and I really love the terrain - felt like a child again jumping around on those small hills/cliffs and in the green vegetation

About spawn and transmit, I wonder - how about moving the strogg spawn slightly up and away from transmit, so gdf have a chance of running down to transmit on the other side and try to defend it? See thumb1 for a possible place for strogg spawn - it's not far away but could make it even more intense, if it's balanced carefully with spawntimes.

The empty "hole" in the terrain where the river goes, could maybe be fixed with a nice waterfall.

I like the sound atmosphere, but wonder if a couple of bird tweets is looping too often? Sounds like some of them miss a short delay. Would also be cool with even more jungle sounds, spread more over time.

And maybe some more trees, so it looks more like a jungle - performance was good on my comp, so should be room for a few more.

Well that's nitpicking, I didn't really experience any other bugs except those already mentioned - great work!

About deployspots, I think they are ok - should maybe even be one more so they have 3 each (unless I missed one).

[SebaSOFT]

MoP, I just want to say Thanks a lot man, this is great for a winding down community.

[MoonTanMan]

@seba: the community is alive. we just got rid of the suckers.

thanks for the map. we will test it this week.

[hozz]

A MoP map... wow!
Testing now!

[Loffy]

Thx Mop for map and Scrupus for the nice playtesting-time yesterday. First I thought "this map is surely too small" but it wasn't. The timelimit (10 min) and the fast paced game will lead to some intense fragging on this cool jungle arena.

[signofzeta]

hmm, now two more small maps should go along with it to make a SOUTH AMERICAN CAMPAIGN. After that, Quakejoe would be so pleased that he won't bug us anymore about official maps.

Technically this isn't official, but let's say it is to make Quakejoe think it is. He wants official maps and not ranked maps right? Just slap the word official in 2 more custom maps with a jungle theme, or a south american theme, then quakejoe would be proud.

[MoP]

[TFA]Violator: Cheers mate, nice to see you playing
I'll check out the objective text (and get rid of the cockney overlay...), good point about the mines too, I hadn't even considered that when placing stuff. Should have known since it happens to the Databrain all the time on Outskirts, oh well

[]v[]: Cool, good point about the higher terrain and GDF spawn. I was thinking I might even make it a "ground spawn" rather than parachutes since parachuting means you get to cover a large area of the map too easily by floating down.
I am still not sure about deployables too. I think the map may be too small for them, although they do add an interesting touch especially when limited to just 2 deploy spots - you have to choose what combination of things to deploy!
Artillery seems like it might be overpowered but then you can always airstrike / violator anyway so I dunno if removing the deploy spots would help that aspect.

Donnovan: Thanks, glad you like it so far! And yep, that's the original AQ2 map by "timm" that this version is inspired by. I want to try and retain as many of the trickjumps as possible that made the original so fun.
Good point about the terrain behind the plane, I noticed it myself too, and will fix it.

Scrupus: Good catch on the sound, it's only been placed in the Strogg half of the map so far and was more of a test than anything. I definitely need to space it out better and make stuff less repetitive.
I already planned to put a waterfall in, but it's going by that high jump above the pool, the river flowing out the other way is going to be blocked by overgrown vegetation and fallen trees and stuff. Two waterfalls might be too much
I will also definitely add more trees and foliage as long as they don't get in the way of movement. I loved a lot of reference pictures I found with really dense jungle, but I don't think I'll be able to make that look right and still have good freedom to run and jump everything. We'll see how it goes.

SebaSOFT: Thanks, it certainly got me playing and enjoying the game again, the Custom Map Nirvana on Sunday night was a lot of fun!

MoonTanMan, hozz, Loffy: Thanks, hopefully I can improve it soon and get a new beta release out after adding more stuff and balancing it better.

signofzeta: If I manage to finish this map well enough, then I was considering making another one in a similar style and trying to tie it in with the setting here to make a mini-campaign. A set of single-objective maps, might work quite well I think. Plus the small scale makes it easier for me to finish them

Cheers guys!

[Seanza]

I will reinstall to play this only if you are on the server at the same time, MoP.

We both know what happens...

[MoP]

Hahaha! Well, whenever there's a playtest next, I'll let you know

Guns are not allowed. Only airstrike markers...

[[iWi]]

Originally Posted by Seanza

I will reinstall to play this only if you are on the server at the same time, MoP.

We both know what happens...

smells like a big revenge

[lakersforce]

Two words: love it!

Perhaps a fast (like 3 sec) transmit on strogg end?

[signofzeta]

Is it even possible to do a dual objective map? Such as how the Strogg have a busted signaling tower where they have to repair then hack it to send a signal to the strogg ship, but the GDF can destroy it. The GDF have to construct a emp tower, that can be destroyed by plasma charges, but once hacked by GDF to activate it, it jams the signaling tower and thus preventing the strogg from contacting the fleet?