Map Commentary

mp_railway

  Conception:

                I used to have a .map file that I dumped all of my prefabs and large structures into dubbed the "prop museum." One such structure was a single tram car that I had thought to use eventually when I learned how to script moving brushes. I did not end up learning how to do that until after mp_railway was finished, but the tram car became the centerpiece regardless. By this point, I had become much more efficient at level design than I had been in the past, thanks to mp_badpub and mp_chambers, so this map involved a significant amount of pre-production designing on paper.

                My primary goal with this project was to create a gamespace that could equally accommodate both a large and small amount of players as well as cater to deathmatch enthusiasts. The trick is being able to set aside extra space that is only used when the  volume of players demands it. If only a small amount of players is on the map, those extra spaces become irrelevant.

Construction:

                Since I had a very clear understanding of the map layout, the construction time was fairly quick. The biggest design challenges that I ran into were settling on a texture palate and lighting scheme. After having suffered the mapping-hell that was mp_badpub, these issues were chump-change so to speak.

                The rail station is of course the centerpiece and location of the first-contact between the two teams. The rail cars serve as an interesting way to divide up the space. I used the official map Depot as inspiration, and to that end I feel it was a success. Also, I had been playing a lot of Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64 and I feel that subconsciously a lot of the decisions about level design and especially texture palate were effected as a result.

                Again, this map utilizes a simplistic circular approach to the layout. The offensive team has two routes to chose in order to get to the primary objective. The shorter route requires a secondary explosive objective to be completed. Alternatively, the longer route passes by the enemy team's spawn area, but directly leads to the primary objective.

                The prediction and timing of possible routes is extremely important. The wall at the secondary objective has two windows near the destructible doorway. This was a very deliberate design choice. Assuming both teams are traveling at the same speed, they will end up on either side of that objective at the exact same time. This gives the defending team an alternate position to defend said objective rather than constantly trying to take on the attacking team head on all of the time. If the attacking team does manage to plant dynamite at that location, defending players on the opposite side of the door can then traverse the vent nearby which leads into the rail station. It's height ensures that the passage is only one-way.

Reception:

               Mp_railway has had the largest distribution of any of my projects for RTCW and with good reason. It is regarded as one of my very best in terms of team balancing, and I happen to share that sentiment. There is something special about getting team balancing correct with precision. It doesn't always happen and when it does sometimes it's simply a matter of luck if you are unable to dedicate maps to hours of play testing. This is an example of how I got lucky. Initially, the map did not get much playtime. It took the re-release of a tournament edition to get it noticed. According to my sources, it can be found on all versions of RTCW...1.0 through 1.41.