Xagobah: Ravine

[FighterRex]

Hello everyone. Today I bring you my second map called Xagobah: Ravine. It's basically an exotic jungle with the opposing forces separated by a huge valley with water in it. The only way to cross it is to use the narrow pathway connecting the two land masses.

I tried to make it seem like a dense forest in an exotic location that's strange yet beautiful. I'm releasing the Beta version which anyone can download. If you download, please take the time to leave some advice. I really want this to be a good map, so please - be very critical!

Features:
-Beautiful location
-Great firefight on the bridge
-Custom sky, textures, terrain, heroes, all that good stuff
-One AT-TE/AT-AT, two tanks, and a Y-Wing/Droid Gunship
-Central river

Enjoy the Beta and please leave some advice!

Download link:
http://www.gamefront.com/files/20432780/XBR.zip







Update 1:
- Removed the plants that had no collision and replaced them with a wider variety of plants that do have collision
- Added a variety of mushroom-like plants from Sky's HUGE Model Pack (they fit the environment really nice)
- Created "roads" by making open areas without large plants
- CalvaryCptMike was nice enough to make a bridge for the map, which should improve the look and make it a lot less likely for vehicles/AI to fall off. It may also improve gameplay
- Still working on the ravine - trying to make it look nicer
- Rearranging the plants and the planning has improved the gameplay a lot. I didn't move the CPs very much, but they don't seem as far away
- Trying to fix the pathing problem around the big mound where the CIS Gunship/Y-Wing spawns
- Haven't fixed the vehicle sounds yet, but I will
- Going to add more game modes; Likely a hunt mode, possibly a hero assault mode, and possibly a CTF mode (probably one flag to make it easier, but maybe not if I can make the gameplay focus less on the bridge)
- Still looking for a good sky
- Not sure if these were included in the first beta, but I fixed the death region in the ravine and added a "Leaving Battlefield" message
- Added more wrecks from Sky's Model Pack 1 and some dead clone troopers around the wrecks

[CalvaryCptMike]

Not too bad, I do understand this is just a beta. Let me just say this:

"You get from a mod what you put into it."

Pure and simple. In equation form it looks like this:

W*C==A
Where W is work, C is creativity, and A is awesomeness.

Hidden/Spoiler:

okay that second one was just to be funny

First for the cons: It did just use a few of the felucia assets ( mostly just the big flowers ) and is a bit of a bland environment to be frank. Also the plants have no collision meaning you can walk/drive right through them. The bridge is just a raised chunk of terrain, not an actual bridge mesh, and the ravine is just terrain dropped really low making the textures funky. Most, if not all of the gameplay took place on the small bridge itself and was usually I died after a few seconds on it. And the AT-TE kept falling off the bridge and exploding in the ravine. Also only about a third of the vehicles had sounds.

Now for the pros: You did avoid alot of the n00b map pitfalls though, the pathing was good ( although, with few props that even really had collision it couldn't have been TOO hard. ) and the AI rarely fell of the bridge and the AT-AT never did ( even I fell off the bridge ). There is the felucia sky not just the stock one, and the combat is fairly balanced. Also the diverse combination of vehicles was actually really cool, it was neating driving a tank and getting maimed by an AT-AT. It does have foilage and even a droid gunship. The map is a bit too big compared to the actual battle that takes place mostly on the small bridge.

The good part( my recommendations ):
-1- Give the Big flower props collision or take them away, they just clutter your view and don't add to gameplay, instead try putting them more tightly bunched together so that they make "roads" between the clusters, this will also make pathing easier.
-2- Use some variation in the assets, seriously, something besides just felucia assets would greatly improve the map's look. Maybe different looking foilage, even just reskinned.
-3- Use an actual bridge mesh, a raised chunk of terrain isn't the best thing to be honest. ( If you decide to use a bridge mesh but can't find one, just PM me and I'll see if I can't make one for you. )
-4- Consider an actual ravine mesh, again, terrain looks lame, this isn't as important but would look nicer.
-5- The cp's are too far apart considering that the majority of the battle takes place on the bridge itself. Either put the cp's closer to the bridge, or find a way to make the bridge only a part of the battle.
-6- Fix the vehicle sounds, not hard, just do it.
-7- This map currently would really benefit from a sort of hunt mode. Maybe wampas vs. geonosians? I have a green wampa skin if you're interested. Or even Jawas vs. gungans. Then again hero assault might be best since most of the battle happens on the bridge and would be a tight, epic, battle, plus you could force n00b bots off the bridge

Okay so that's just my "sort-of-constructive" criticism. It's not a bad map. And don't take it personally. Happy mapping!

[THEWULFMAN]

I cant really add anything to what mike said, he did a good job describing what needs to be done. But I do have a few things to note. If the plant is about waist height and small, its ok to not have collision for it. Most games done give plants collision because it would be a planning nightmare. But anything the size of those felucia plants definitely should have collision.

I would also like to suggest, a new sky and also get rid of the felucia plant skydome as well, it just screams felucia way too much.

[naru1305]

and now THEWULFMAN said what i wanted to add to mike. i think with a few changes this map can be a realy good one, but try to add more changes so that we are not remember every time that this is felucia. adding some more wrecks would be nice and maybe some other props in the world so that it look different.

so keep it up

[FighterRex]

Thanks guys! The reason the big plants don't have collision is because they were actually two layers of the foliage (I have four layers of foliage; one for the grass, one for the waist-high bushes, and two for everything else). I didn't know how to give foliage collision , and I knew that even if I did that I wouldn't be able to create barriers for the plants since they don't show up in ZE. What I'm going to do is remove those two layers of huge-plant foliage and just leave the grass and short-bush foliage layers. Then, I'll use some stock Felucia plants and arrange them in a way that creates paths and "roads" like CalvaryCptMike suggested. Also, I'll work on adding different game modes. Hunt would be fun. I was originally thinking about capture the flag, but since you can rarely get across the ravine without getting shot, I'd have to redirect the battle fiirst (which I might do a litttle so that there is fighting elsewhere, but I want to keep that central battle). Also, CalvaryCptMike, you touched on the fact that it's extremely difficult to cross the ravine. I've noticed that too, and I'm looking for ways to make it less deadly and put more emphasis on actually capturing CPs, rather than killing all the enemy troops.

My only other concern is that if I do use an actual bridge .msh, then the vehicles (specifically the walkers) won't be able to cross to the other side. Which, may actually improve gameplay... but you've got to admit that it was funny to watch the AI try to balence the AT-AT on the pathway.

I'll follow all of the other suggestions as well. I'm going to work on getting those floating spores seen on the Felucia map into here, and then possibly changing to sky to a blue sky (If any of you can find a sky with purple in the atmoshere, that'd be perfect! ).

[[Padawan]Helkaan]

Played it and liked it. The only problem for me was when you use the AT-ST: if the vehicle is too much near the ravine, if yo uspawn, you fall and die.

[FighterRex]

Played it and liked it. The only problem for me was when you use the AT-ST: if the vehicle is too much near the ravine, if yo uspawn, you fall and die.

Thanks. Do you mean the AT-TE/AT-AT? I've never had that happen to me, but I can imagine that's a problem! I'm working on finding a replacement for that pathway across the ravine.

[CalvaryCptMike]

My only other concern is that if I do use an actual bridge .msh, then the vehicles (specifically the walkers) won't be able to cross to the other side. Which, may actually improve gameplay... but you've got to admit that it was funny to watch the AI try to balence the AT-AT on the pathway.

Wrong, you can use a .msh and vehicles and walkers will be able to walk across just as easy.

I'll follow all of the other suggestions as well. I'm going to work on getting those floating spores seen on the Felucia map into here, and then possibly changing to sky to a blue sky (If any of you can find a sky with purple in the atmoshere, that'd be perfect! ).

Try the rhen var citadel sky, it's purple-ish. Or a reskined bespin sky.

[sim-al2]

Wrong, you can use a .msh and vehicles and walkers will be able to walk across just as easy.

Ehhhhh... walkers don't seem to like transitions from terrain to objects for some reason. Obviously they walk across a flat mesh just fine, but flat mesh/sloped terrain has always seemed to be random in whether it works. For example, the AT-XT in Naboo:Prototype works crossing the bridges, but when a walker tries to go up/down the ramp on Jade Moon, it can get...wonky...

[FighterRex]

Okay, I'm at a bit of a standstill right now regarding the ravine and the pathway. I have no idea where I would find a ravine .msh, and I'm still looking for a good bridge to use. CalvaryCptMike, you said that you may be able to create a bridge for me, which would be great. However, If I do use a bridge mesh, then I don't know how the planning would work. I guess it would be okay without a CP on the bridge, but if there was one then how would I do the planning? I know you can't create a hub (while planning) on an object - only on the terrain. Also, I'm not 100% sure how I'd get them to cross the bridge without falling off...

On the other hand, everything else is going well. I found a great model pack by Sky that has some weird mushroom plants in it that are abnormally large; twice the height of a soldier. This is perfect because Xagobah has tons of large mushrooms on it's surface. I'll combine them with the Felucia plants. Also, it's atmosphere is filled with spores, so I took the spores that float in the air on the Felucia map and transferred them to this map. I found some good AT-RT and AT-TE wrecks to and scattered a few around the map. I may try some custom skins for the sides too. I'm still experimenting with different models.

If anyone has any suggestions for the ravine and the bridge, please tell me.

[sim-al2]

All planning is 2D, the height has not effect on the AI's movements (incidentally this is why AI can get stuck crossing over/under other paths). As for keeping them from falling, making the path narrower than the bridge by a good margin and putting barriers along the edge should do nicely.

[[Padawan]Helkaan]

Played it and liked it. The only problem for me was when you use the AT-ST: if the vehicle is too much near the ravine, if yo uspawn, you fall and die.

Thanks. Do you mean the AT-TE/AT-AT? I've never had that happen to me, but I can imagine that's a problem! I'm working on finding a replacement for that pathway across the ravine.

Ah yeah I mean AT-TE. AT-ST is in french

[FighterRex]

I've also noticed that. Recently I've been focusing more on the gameplay, and while the AT-AT tends to be okay, the AT-TE doesn't have the best drivers... So I'm hoping that the custom .msh bridge will help to fix the problem, and I think it will.

[[Padawan]Helkaan]

DarthD.U.C.K made a geonosian bridge a long time ago, I think that would fit if you reskin it. It was publicly released but I can't find the link, so ask DarthD.U.C.K if you're interested.