[WIP] Precipice

[Siliconmaster]

Hey everyone. A few of you from the old EP forums, gruntmaps, or the long-defunct FMT may remember this relic. Precipice has been my summer project in addition to the year or so I slaved over it almost 4 years ago. It is large, now playable, and I am proud of it. Lately I have been giving alpha/beta copies of it to people for testing, and the feedback has been both overwhelming and wonderful. Much of it resembles "gameplay here fails, do something", so I do. Other feedback I receive is aesthetic in nature, and overall I am still working a lot on that part of it. I knew that if I posted a WIP topic I'd get some good feedback, but also a lot of the usual harsh/flaming criticism, so I waited until I was happy with the direction the map was going in and the way it looked. That point would be an hour and a half ago, when I began typing this endless (including the spoilers) post.

But enough with words, I know you all want pictures, so I took many. Spoiler'd for 56Krs (if they still exist, god help their souls).

First off, the red base exterior


To its left, the blue base


A shot looking up at the bridge and the massive retaining wall


The opposite direction, showing the bases, bridge, banshee roosts, and control room


A closer shot of the control room and the lighting, plus the tunnel entrance


The new bridge, much thanks to Ara


Blue base top-side


Red base top-side


The interior of blue base, aiming toward the opening to the outside


A reverse shot, showing the flag room and the three surrounding teleporters


The route up to the banshee roost (pardon the physics-defying camera angle)


The location of the land bridge


One of 4 cool, but semi-useless vehicle bays. This is one of blue's.


The interior of the control room, aiming toward the front windows


The reverse angle, also showing the tunnel exits


The control room tunnels- layout better seen in the renders below


Back render


Top render

One perfectly reasonable question that has been raised has been gameplay. The map is CTF-based, though slayer will hopefully work pretty well too. Below I have taken the two renders and attempted via photoshop to illustrate my current designs.

In this back shot you can see the vertical movement routes. Teleporters are in green.

Route #1 is the most basic- out the base, across the very narrow bridge and into the opposite base. This would be somewhat suicidal in a game since there are multiple turrets on guard and the enemy team could easily pick off people coming across.

#2 is the top route. Via the teleporter at the back of the base, players can go top-side and utilize warthogs to either cros the bridge (visible in this image) or go through the control room (visible in the "top" image). This is an alternate route, and passing through the control room is more protected than going over the partially-destroyed bridge.

#3 is the banshee roost, visible in a screenshot farther up the page. From there players can fly anywhere they want to, but damage to players in banshees has been decreased thanks to a suggestion from Masterz. This should help even out combat. It is certainly the easiest to get from place to place in the banshee, but alternate routes are much sneakier.

#4 is the caves/landbridge route. While a little hard to illustrate, a one-way side teleporter takes the player into a small cave area which leads down a chute to the base of the landbridge. From there the player can either return up to the base, or move across the landbridge to take advantage of the opposing team's one-way return teleporter, shown with the dotted green line.



Here you can see the extent of route #2 much better, including the tunnels down and through the control room.

#5 is also visible. It consists of one-way teleporters to the control room, a mid-level hub where players can take the lone banshee or take warthogs up the tunnels.

Work on this project has sped up considerably since I got home for the summer. All right, that's an understatement. This was a half-textured, single smoothing group gmax monstrosity as of 2 months ago. The fact that it is even in game at all, let alone playable, is incredible. The goal now is to make it as enjoyable and nice-looking as possible.

On that note, things I already have on my feedback list of "urgent, cool, and you want me to do what!?" are as follows:

• Vary the cliffs and add player clipping to any crafty players who somehow manage to get above the vehicle ceiling (in progress)
• Find a way to balance the banshees (sort of in progress)
• Add details such as weeds in the cracks, etc. (In progress, but not that high on my list at the moment)
• Add a ladder in the control room pit so players who survive the fall aren't forced to suicide by jumping out the canyon exit
• Railings. Over half of my testers requested this, and I'm finally moving toward giving in. It is a little unnerving to exit a teleporter and be 3 feet from a splattery doom.
• A makeover for the walls/interlocks- Ara/Icedragon has a model of the wall and as of yesterday has graciously agreed to do some work on it, leaving me free to work on the rest of the list. Once again he has my greatest thanks.
• Taller teleporters- suggested by Ara after he kept feeling the (totally unnecessary :P) need to duck as he walked through them

My list of larger, more difficult, yet understandable and cool conceptsis thus:

• Break up the monotony of the canyon walls- I'm thinking large supports or buttresses along the walls, but I haven't decided yet. I do agree that they are pretty barren and plain as is, but I did want them to look artificial. I'll eventually find a way to do this one.
• Added forerunner architecture up top. Right now the small machines are the only buildings top-side, and the grass is devoid of any cover. a30 style pipes and similar tech might work well to give players on foot a helping hand. Also, buildings in the distance over the top of the cliffs would be a nice thematic touch.
• Floodify me, capt'n. Warsaw suggested an idea what actually fits in with the original theme of the map, which was some sort of WIP forerunner canyon had been attacked by the flood, and the end of the long canyon sealed itself off to contain the infestation. The destroyed bridge and various flood sound effects in the level attest to this, but Warsaw proposed that this theme be brought to the entire map in full force. Experiments in corners, flood growths in the lower caves, the whole deal. I am strongly in favor of this idea, but I simply don't have the willpower to even start on that until I have the map the way I want it otherwise. This is probably the most drastic, yet most awesome of the suggestions I've gotten so far.

Stuff I'm aware of, but may not change drastically:

• "That section of architecture doesn't look forerunner enough"- I am well aware that over a year my modeling skills changed tremendously, and with it the closeness to forerunner architecture shifted as well. Right now my explanation is that parts of it were hastily finished when it became apparent the flood threat was becoming more dangerous. However, I am considering redesigning some doorways, etc. Large-scale remodeling is far into my denial zone, however. It may not be the best constructive mindset, but I've spent far too much of my halo-playing life on this thing and I can't bring myself to start writing over the stuff I spent so much time on.

Okay, now that the wall of pictures and text is over, give me your feedback. I want Precipice to be fun, pretty, and useful. Thanks for your time.

Update #1: August 29th, 2009

It's been a little more than a month, so I believe it is time for an update. Please excuse the double post.

I've conducted multiple playtests of the map, and the results have been very helpful. ShadowSpartan whoring the banshee tunnels led to those being closed off, and other feedback led to vehicle placement changes and a total removal of vehicles from the lower land bridge.

However, the focus of the past month has been getting the map to not look like crap. LlamaJuice graciously took on the job of nagging tutor, and I thank him greatly for his help and feedback.

And now, picture time.

First off, the biggest visual changes have been just inside the base walls. Working backwards from most boring to least, I decided that area was completely devoid of any and all interest. For almost 4 weeks I worked to improve it, and here are the results.

First of all, a reminder of what it used to look like, albeit the blue base:


And the new version:






The corner alcove:




Instead of the ladder and the long boring hallway that used to lead to the banshee roost, I've created a sniper overlook with a teleporter which leads directly to the banshee platform. This cuts down on player moving time, while adding a new element of gameplay to the bases. Now players will have to watch for enemies not only from the front entrance, but to the upper sides as well.





Now that this section is basically completed, I've started working on other areas. For the exterior parts of the map I'm still planning to do a lot more work, especially on the giant walls. For now though I've added some scenery and trees, and I think that even at this basic stage they add a lot to the look:






The control room seems to me to be in need of the most tuning, since it has no cover whatsoever and at the moment is nothing more than a transportation hub and a hog-war pit (which is actually quite fun, as Warsaw and I found out).

First off, some added details on the window to make it less bland:


I also added a ladder and a banshee to the pit below the platforms so that it has a purpose and players no longer get stuck down there.


As you can see, I also took rooster's suggestion and modified the platforms to make the marathon symbol:



This leads to a really nice silhouette (that's for you, Llama) when going up the ramp:


For cover and detail purposes I'm currently working on hologram consoles to place around the control room. These four are the only permanent ones so far- those arrayed around the perimeter will probably be modified:

I'm headed back to college on Monday, so the pace of work on this project is probably going to slow down a lot. However, I hope that people like what they see, and I'm hoping to run more playtests into September to get gameplay tuned up.

As always, feedback is welcome.

Update #2: September 7th, 2009

It turns out the portalling issues weren't all that was causing the exception. For some reason boulder_small was causing it. After 3 hours of slow trial and error I finally narrowed it down. Blue base is now as nice-looking as red base, and the teleporters are all fixed and usable.

The blue shrooms


Blue base

Note the lack of holograms on the mushrooms due to lack of time. Those shots are some of the only angles without any portal clipping. There will be some MAJOR portal construction and revision before release, whenever that might be.

I did conduct a short playtest with Bacon and ShadowSpartan a few minutes ago, and it was fun, albeit a little empty with only 3 people. For some reason the game was lagging, but I'm not sure if it was the map or my connection, since I was hosting. We'll have to figure that out later.

Update #3: October 5th, 2009

I have remade the banshee/wasp/flyingthings pad so it looks substantially more interesting. As a reminder, here's the original, as it currently stands in the map:



It's basically a slightly elongated box with a pad attached and one light.

Here's the work I did today in my free time- full explanation after the pictures:

Pad view:


The ceiling detail:


Far shot:


The right doorway, which will be unlocked:


And the left doorway, which will either be open, or locked to prevent players from getting lost:


As always those images are in high resolution, but in shot tags. If you want a bit of a closer look, click on them to enlarge.

My thought behind the new design is that a teleporter wouldn't just be hanging out on a pad, it would be in a back room similar to Gephyrophobia. Also, it being a whole facility and such, there would be other areas in the map players either can't get to, or are unused by gameplay. The second doorway is one such example, similar to the side doorways in 343 Guilty Spark. I may place a locked door there, and fill it with covenant crates or something similarly atmospheric. I can also use crates and lighting to direct players to the correct door pretty easily.

Where the pad meets the canyon wall it looks a little bland to me, but I'll think of something. The textures are semi-finalized, but I didn't put a huge amount of effort into them, so they can always be changed. The main light in the area will come from the recessed lights in the ceiling. With the ceiling design I was going for a bit of the Death Island/B40 look, with visual scaffolding and lattices in high spaces.

Update #4: October 9th, 2009

I now consider the new banshee/wasp platform complete, unless there are drastic complaints. Renders:

Overall view:


A different view of the platform supports:


The platform gizmos, which have lights as well as a cool recessed area under glass. Thanks to Lightning for that idea:


New details on the wall, light fixtures, a border along the edges, etc:


The overall interior:


The new hollow section, with glass showing:


And without:


I'm happy with this section, and I think with the doors in place and the correct indicator lights working it will work well for gameplay as well. The new hollow section in the outcropping will prevent players from camping on the other side.

[Advancebo]

Looks good.

[Ki11a_FTW]

i like the style of it, it reminds me of when CE first came out, that giant wall needs more details on it though

[Siliconmaster]

i like the style of it, it reminds me of when CE first came out, that giant wall needs more details on it though

In progress. Hopefully Ara will be able to make it look quite nice. I don't want to wear him out as my miracle worker- the job he did on the metal slab that was the bridge is marvelous, and I asked him politely to help me with the walls. :P If he can't get them looking right I'll have to go at it, but I'm afraid my detail-oriented modeling skills aren't all that impressive.

[Con]

Reminds me of that part in h2, quarantine zone or sacred icon I don't remember, where you cross that huge gap between two massive walls. The map is a bit bland and could use better lighting and atmosphere, but I like it anyway because of the awe factor in the forerunner spaces.

[Roostervier]

I think the big circle thing you've got there should have a small section cut out so it looks like a marathon symbol from above. o:

Also, it looks nice.

[PopeAK49]

Somethings are quite odd, some are quite interesting, and others are very cool. I agree with the lighting though. The only place were I see good lighting is the forerunner cave.

[ThePlague]

P nice stuff man, looks promising

[BobtheGreatII]

Looks good no doubt. But as people are pointing out, there's a lot of wasted space.

[Sever]

The architecture looks... ok... mainly because a good deal of it is the basic H1 architecture, and you're just reusing it in whatever context you feel like, but that's not the main issue. It's simply too freakin' huge. Maybe if it were 1/8th of its current size, then it'd be OK. Also, there's zero cover ANYWHERE where it is needed. Basically, whichever team controls the Sniper Rifles and Banshees will win hands down.