Map Commentary

mp_shipment

  Conception:

                Ever since I can remember I have always had an affinity for lighthouses. When I moved from designing with 2.5d engines to modern full-3d ones, some things that were impossible with the former could finally come to fruition with the latter. Early on I wanted to construct a multiplayer map with a lighthouse as the main focal point.

Construction:

                This map encapsulates the many mistakes that one can overlook while building an arena. The lighthouse was constructed first without regards to the environment that was to be put around it. After finalizing the centerpiece, I began to design the man-made island, opting for a simplistic approach due to my lack of experience working with terrain at the time.

                Even though I had released a few other maps prior to mp_shipment, I still consider it my first "true" map for specific reason. Whereas the layouts of the others had been made up as development went along, this map was started with a clear understanding of the layout as a whole (of course after the lighthouse had been built). Unfortunately, the map was originally designed as a deathmatch arena. Once modified for standard objective gameplay, it became obvious that it was severely maladapted. Mp_shipment is far too small and as a result, spawnkilling became a regular occurrence upon release. Also, the maphas too many areas that when exploited ruin the gameplay balancing.

                Lastly, this is an extremely inefficient map on a technical level as well. At the time, the relationship between structural and detail brushes was not known to me. mp_shipment is comprised almost exclusively of detail brushes, resulting in the map constantly being drawn in its entirety by the player's CPU.

Reception:

                Despite all of it's flaws, people still had some fun with it upon release. The exploited camping positions (especially inside of the lighthouse stairwell) in and of itself show the lack of professionalism in it's execution. It would be one thing if the ma's gameplay was solid and made up for the lack of polish and detail. Sadly, mp_shipment fails to excel in either respect. The lessons learned after seeing it's performance proved invaluable later on in terms of gameplay balancing and level design.