Map Commentary

mp_badpub

  Conception:

                This map was solely created with the purpose of landing it in rotation on a server with heavy traffic. The Bad Clan Pub on RTCW version 1.33 was and is my clan's server, so what better way to ensure your map being showcased than to build the concept around it's name. From there, I began to work on designs for an urban setting in which a pub was used as a front for underground intelligence against the Nazi occupation. France seemed the ideal setting, so the street names in the map are taken directly from roads in Paris. However, I had no intentions of replicating those streets accurately, so they were chosen at random. The pub was designed first, and then the cityscape around it slowly began to take shape. Initially, there was only going to be one or two small streets, but as the design became more and more complex, it was obvious that the map as a whole needed to be expanded.

Construction:

                Mp_badpub  has been by far the most important learning experience I've had as a level designer. It holds the record for raw construction time and compiling time. It was the largest map that I had constructed up to that point, so eventually I was forced to learn some key design techniques that I should have picked up long before this project even got off the ground.

                When I began nearing the end of basic construction of the streets and buildings, it became evident that the map was completely unplayable. I still had not grasped the relationship between structural and detail brushes, so everything in the gamespace was being drawn by the CPU regardless of where you were on the map which in tern killed the frame rate. Unfortunately for me, I then had to spend hours upon hours trying to understand that concept while incorporating it into mp_badpub in a timely manner. This was not such an easy task because the map up to that point was not built in such a way that leaf nodes could be easily broken up by portals. I literally had to take apart the entire map and put it back together in sections. A large period of trial and error began and the project almost made me give up on map making altogether. Fortunately, I took the time to finish what I had started. The end result was a learning experience as epic as the map itself.

                The layout of the streets seemed fairly simple to me. I often described it as a backwards E, noting that the Axis spawn, Forward deployment flag, and Pub/Allied spawn/Objective were on each of the separate horizontal roads. Grabbing the flag reduced the area traveled in half and still provided multiple routes to take. There are also two explosive objectives required to obtain the primary document-style objective, so the time of play is significantly longer depending upon which route is open to the offensive team.

                One of the pub's main features is the use of screenshots taken from the official multiplayer levels hanging on the walls. In my mind it served as a fitting tribute to the maps that our RTCW community knew and loved, which might further ensure an attachment to my project and get people excited about it.

                Mp_badpub takes place at night, so there are numerous illuminated windows and lamp posts throughout the level. Just the sheer amount of lights and lighted surfaces resulted in the longest compile time I have ever had for a map. Along with the flawed vis management, the total compile time is just shy of  7 hours. Before I had taken the map apart and put it back together, the compile time was well over 12. This is why it is important to understand the basic techniques available to you to make your construction time as efficient as possible, and I had to learn all of this the hardest way possible.

Reception:

               mp_badpub remains my most recognizable project given that it shares a kinship with both the clan and the server. Unfortunately, it never did get incorporated into the standard rotation on said server, but after having gone to hell and back just to get the map finished, any let down in that regard was chump-change. So, not only was this experience about honing my skills as a level designer, but it served as the death nail for expecting custom maps to finally become more prevalent on servers with high traffic. Gameplay on the map seems to be fairly solid, and was well received at the time, but the other map released simultaneously, mp_chambers, proved to have a more lasting appeal. This is painfully ironic given the disproportion of time-investment. I eventually got over it and discovered first hand that aesthetics and detail don't make the map, the gameplay does first and foremost.