Map Commentary

wolflab series pack one

  Conception:

                With regards to the initial design phase, this project took much much longer than my other projects. Not only because I was working on three maps that had to maintain a level of continuity, but settling on a thematic template was challenging. The conceptual design went through about a dozen iterations before I settled on the final look and feel.

                Prior to all of this, however, the idea was first born out of my desire to make a map based on the sister-server to the Bad clan Pub, named the Bad clan Lab. At that point really the only stipulation that I set in stone was the necessity for the architecture to be fairly abstract in contrast to all of my previous work. Eventually, I gave up on the many designs I had produced for the Lab map and the project slipped into obscurity as I perused other endeavors. Eventually, through alternative influences, I found a new direction for the project that seemed much more appropriate. The single map then became a series of three, and the layouts became more akin to controlled combat arenas instead of one expansive Laboratory complex.

                The environment was intended to seem very artificial and controlled. The texture palette and map layouts were intended to make them look very sterile and clinical. Even the teleporter, the most prominent object featured in the series, looks like a pill bottle from the back. The majority of the textures were custom, ensuring that the end result would seem completely different than anything players had experienced before. There is a deliberate absence of color throughout the three maps. The mostly monochromatic setting seems to further accentuate the deep red tones. This provides not just an aesthetic appeal, but also a utilitarian one as well. The player's eyes are drawn to areas of interest, which are for the most part highlighted in red.

                The arenas would not be complete without a thematic set of tricks and traps to make the gameplay interesting. After the teleporters were designed, the mines and jump pads shortly followed. It was important to ease the player's ability to differentiate between these items, so each has a distinctive shape. The mines are square-shaped, whereas the jump pads are diamond shaped. The two red brushes on the jump pads are intended to illustrate that they can be used in two separate directions.

                The "spawn rooms" provide a few benefits. It helpes to reinforce the thematic continuity that the three maps were to have in common. Also, it ensures that the spawns themselves can never be spawn camped because the team has to enter the combat arenas using a teleporter. Any camping that occurs is restricted to the arena itself. Lastly, the "training rooms" allow players to learn about the teleporters and such in a stress-free, non-combative environment at their leisure.

Construction:

                The arena for Spire was constructed first. Eventually, I settled on a final design for the spawn rooms and made a template .map file where all of the spawns were set into place. All that needed to be worked on were the arenas. This saves me the time of having to copy and paste all of those brushes into each new map that is being worked on.

                Later on, Outpost and lastly Gauntlet were constructed. Each were designed to emphasize specific types of gameplay. Spire centers around the use of teleports. Outpost makes fair use of the jump pads. Gauntlet emphasizes the use of grenades. Where the first two are basically symmetrical and take place in one large arena, Gauntlet is broken up into several segments. This map took much longer to design than the other three because I had a hard time settling on which modules to use and in what order. Also, it wasn't until I was long into development that I realized that having the document-style objective claimed near the beginning of the room sequence was flawed. The "Crushroom" was the cause of much frustration. Anyone who is familiar with this phenomenon is aware that when an objective carrier is crushed, the objective disappears along with the player's body, thereby breaking the gameplay. I loved the Crush room so much that I opted to work around it instead of removing it entirely. SO, the solution was to have the objective claimed at the very end. This allowed for the interesting "pipe walk" and grenade launch sequence at its final stage. Of course even if the objective is claimed and taken into the last teleporter, one must still hit the target at the end of the massive freefall. Spire and Outpost were fairly reasonable in terms of design layout. Gauntlet was about trying to take the thematic setting established in the first two and putting it in a contrasting layout and beyond the borders of that reasoning. Gauntlet requires a higher degree of skill to navigate, and all of that was intentional.

Reception:

               For the most part, the Wolflab series pack was successful. I tried to limit the amount of hype prior to its release, so when I opened the floodgates many people became interested solely because it looked completely different from any of the other maps they had played. Outpost ended up being the most popular of the three. Gauntlet had many people confused unfortunately. Since it was divided into segments, players had a hard time mentally picturing the map as a whole. Lessons learned I suppose. There are three other maps on their way (which can be seen in the On The Shelf section), including a revamped sequel to the much-loved Outpost.