What should I do with this map?

[WindexIsBack]

I've gotten a sudden (and very likely temporary, once I remember the pains of mapping) urge to go back to mapping for my once main game - The End Is Here.

So, the basic story is the world is fucked from zombies, but surprise there. You aren't here to find the vaccine, or rescue a scientist. You're there to keep civilians alive and not much else.
The players play as the army - creating units to kill the zombie hordes. The game takes place in a small town where if a building isn't enter able, you can get onto it's roof. This should have opened up many styles of strategy. Players would be forced back and push forward.

However, I failed in making the game fluid. Players turtled, and when they turtled they made areas of huge firepower - nothing could get through that.

The players objective was to keep civilians alive (of which the counter is there, it just isn't implemented). Players would spawn at the very bottom of the map and move forward.

http://www.mapgnome.org/map-info/328101
Test the map out - It's unprotected so you can open it. Take any materials you like in it, I made most of them (if not all) and are free to use.
Ingame, press up arrow to select your unit building. Right arrow to select hero building (forgot if it's enabled or not)


After playing for a bit, you'll probably notice yourself packing yourself closer and closer. This is something I didn't want happening - yet it did.

ONLY ANSWER IF YOU'VE PLAYED THE MAP
-Do you think I should expand the map heavily - making it more of a square, with zombies coming from only 1 or 4 directions? Players would spawn in the center. This would really force players to expand themselves

-Working on the above, should there instead be many trapped citizens, instead of 1 single collection? These would act as "constrol" points, encouraging players to protect them.

-Should the "Sharp shooter" kind of infantry (Marksman, Heavy Infantry, and Sniper) have a minimum range? This would encourage a better balance of units.

-Should I allow units to construct barricades? This could be a set of skills the hero could use. Building barricades would slow down units in the street, while units in the rooftop give support fire.

-If the town is redesigned, should I make it more clustered or more open?

-Should players have to force doors down to enter buildings? This would make buildings actually useful with their low entrances. Roofs however, would probably feature more "entrances" to them.

-Should unit vision be reduced? This would encourage players spreading out to cover more sight.

-Rather than taking part in 1 single night, should the game instead take place over many days and nights? The Mobile Army would only reinforce you based on how important (aka: civilians) you have left. And they would only appear during "peace" time. This would give players a huge incentive to keep civilians alive, while at the same time forcing players to be more mobile to protect them all.

-Does the game have low frame rate?

If you answer those, I'll give you +rep. Would really appreciate the answers!

 

[Idontknowyou]

Give me a minute to play and ill give some suggestions.




Edit

here are some suggestions:

-Create large zombies that cannot fit through the doors, but will destroy walls if they cannot reach their target (when the house you are in is destroyed you will be forced to move to another).

-Create special objectives which will appear randomly throughout the game, they can be things like "escort the supply truck", "protect the school", "Destroy this target".

-Create various zones that can be captured, all of them will give you periodic income.

-Zombies drop long lasting disease clouds when they die, so you must move constantly to avoid them.

- Make the zombies slower, but have much more HP and attack power, so that you have to constantly "kite" them.


(Thinking of more ideas)

 

[Tyrulan]

> Do you think I should expand the map heavily

No I think the maps size is great as it is. However I would consider adding more entry points for the zombies.

> Should there instead be many trapped citizens, instead of 1 single collection?

Definitely, this would encourage players to move throughout the map rather than as you say, turtle.

> Should I allow units to construct barricades?

This seems to defeat the purpose of moving civilians. However, it may be good for early game strategies as you don't have enough units to survive normal without sending off a rescue team.

> If the town is redesigned, should I make it more clustered or more open?

A little of both is nice, don't want to feel like I'm trapped but at the same time I still want to know I'm in a city. I would fix the sight pathing or whatever that is doing, bothered me some.

> Should players have to force doors down to enter buildings?

Of course!!!! Being on the roof is a great strategical advantage! They should have to work to get on buildings. On the other side of the arguement though, you have to remember the city HAS been overrun by zombies so some doors should already be broken in. You should also find some zombies just relaxing on top of buildings. Not everyone is hunting.

> Should unit vision be reduced?

No, I found it hard enough to shoot zombies with their speed as it is. However if you decide to create barricades than yes. That seems a little bit ridiculous for a barricade to see very far at all.

> Rather than taking part in 1 single night, should the game instead take place over many days and nights?

Yes, some leverage from the near dizzying zombie attack makes sense to me. We all need a break from the same thing over and over again. Also as you say it provdies more incentive to resue the hostages which I like since I found myself more or less barricading or turtling just to stay alive not to mention rescueing some civilian who isn't really worth it anyway..

> Does the game have low frame rate?

I've never had problems with frame rates... but mine were 60++ the whole game so I suppose no. Looked fine to me!!



> Afterthoughts..

Looks like a very nice map! I like the concept and Ithink it could go far. The custom tiles and doodads bring an extra 'ooh', and 'awe' aspect to the game. I think the units (marines) should hve varying skins to allow the user to more easily see between them all. If you decide you'd like some help with the map, hit me up! I'm always around and I'd love to help!

Cheers
~Tyrulan

 

[Sneakster]

Haha this map is great! I just played it for 15 minutes straight and I loved every second. Very very very enjoyable! Add more classes!!

 

[Idontknowyou]

the game is quite great, keep working on it =]

 

[Bloodcount]

Do it. There aren't any good zombie protection maps. This one looks good (I tested the unprotected version) And... you have already worked on the map. It will be good if you continue to expand it. good luck =]

 

[WindexIsBack]

Thanks for the replies = )
I'm probably going to redesign the town using my recently released wall package.
For starters, the textures on those walls are considerbly better, more varied, and often times work better. I'll likely add "flat" roofs like in the current version of this game for many buildings.

Spoiler

Create large zombies that cannot fit through the doors, but will destroy walls if they cannot reach their target (when the house you are in is destroyed you will be forced to move to another).

While I think I might impliment something similiar to this, the zombie wouldn't be able to destroy the wall. It would just stay out there ;-)

-Create special objectives which will appear randomly throughout the game, they can be things like "escort the supply truck", "protect the school", "Destroy this target".

I don't think I've played any game where this wasn't a chore to do.

-Create various zones that can be captured, all of them will give you periodic income.

That's the basic idea behind the multiple civilians - however you can't really "regain" them once they're dead.

-Zombies drop long lasting disease clouds when they die, so you must move constantly to avoid them.

One of the WIP zombies in the game does have a disease cloud, however I need to finalize it.

No I think the maps size is great as it is. However I would consider adding more entry points for the zombies.

I'm really leaning towards a cube map, rather than a retangle one. Zombies would either come from 1 direction, or all of them depending on difficulty. At the moment, the town seems too small. Too few choke points mainly.

This seems to defeat the purpose of moving civilians. However, it may be good for early game strategies as you don't have enough units to survive normal without sending off a rescue team.

Barricades wouldn't be to stop zombies, but to slow them down. You'll quickly notice in the game, units in the street are much easier to kill than units on buildings.

A little of both is nice, don't want to feel like I'm trapped but at the same time I still want to know I'm in a city. I would fix the sight pathing or whatever that is doing, bothered me some.

Of course! A cluttered area would probably be in small pockets, while wider areas form most of the map.

Of course!!!! Being on the roof is a great strategical advantage! They should have to work to get on buildings. On the other side of the arguement though

Good point, most buildings with walkable roofs will probably be a bit harder to get onto - however a few will have the regular wood-boards-going-up-to-it.

you have to remember the city HAS been overrun by zombies so some doors should already be broken in. You should also find some zombies just relaxing on top of buildings. Not everyone is hunting.

Storytime!
The infection isn't really explained in my storyline (which was going to be put on 3 different games) - but rather it describing what happens after it catches fire. Major cities are the first places to go, as as winter approaches many zombies actually migrate south.
The army you belong to was protecting a large group of survivors, however one of the "city" swarms caught your smell and have been trailing you for weeks. It was decided that they were gaining, and it would be impossible to outrun them.
The plan was to split the civilians into 2 groups - One was told to head the other direction, where another army would put them under their protection. The other group would stay with the current army, and continue moving.
The first group was lied to - no one would be meeting them at the destination. Most of them would die as the zombie group reached them.

The other group however had only small reminets of zombies following them now. Contact with the Mobile Army was made, and they were ordered to hold their position and remove the smaller zombie swarm still trailing them - if they did, the larger swarm will not be able to locate the second group.
So the second group has picked a town, and not a moment too soon...

 

[2evil]

First off... amazing models and such, the implementation of custom objects is incredible

but I think my computer offers a completely different perspective on the lagginess. since my other [good] comp is broken right now i'm using this one:
2.4 celeron
512 RAM
9600 256 mb
[yeah its old. its usually my server]

but playin the map... well it became unplayable. For reference, all my settings are on low.
My FPS was around 15-25 [nothing happening] and dropped to about 2-5 when units were firing. In fogged areas, it was > 30 [no noticable lag], unless units were firing.
also, on low shading, the textures get shaded as big blocks/tiles, i don't know if this happens on other settings tho.
but enough about the superficial stuff

Gameplay:
>The zombies should be slower, to promote people moving around more. Any time I tried to move my unit would either die [not fast enough response], or... well... die. SWAT did a good job with zombie speeds, theres some fast ones, but the average crowd can be outmaneuvered. Those zombies are also very powerful, forcing you to continuously move or die

>Use the rooftops not as cover/bunkers, but as deathtraps. If an objective is on the top of a roof and there is only one enterance, getting the objective and getting back out becomes very difficult. requires a lot more teamwork that way

>For the spawns, does it scale to the amount of players? Also, somehow make them more stupid, let them roam aimlessly before a player finds them, as having them ll converge on your point constantly from every point on the map makes the moving difficult, to say the least.

>Another thing about the spawns - earlier I was thinkin about makin a zombie map [never really got to it], but having spawns all over the map where no players are is really resource-consuming. Instead one of my ideas was to create an area around a unit/unit group and have them spawn within there, subtracting the area that the player can see. essentially, have the zombies spawn around the player's vision and then remove all the zombies > a certain radius away from the player's vision

>I felt that the terraining ended fairly abruptly on the edges, and maybe put some landmarks into the city

No one can survive the zombie apacalypse by sitting on top of a building

very very good start tho man, good job!!

 

[WindexIsBack]

I've decided with a new town - this town is considerably larger, but more square. Here's a layout I'm using for the town.
http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/7179/39692080.jpg
Red = Potential spawnpoints for zombies
Yellow = Building, Can get on top of. Remember, it is likely the placement will change. May split a building up into many smaller ones for example.
Green = Building, enter able. Some buildings may consist of both a roof and inside pertains.
You'll notice at the bottom there is a long string of red, along with a very big building. This building will have many small corridors, and mainly be there to fill up "empty" land.


I want to make insides more useful to players - which is hard to do. Here are some ideas I've had towards this subject..
-Zombies can climb up onto roofs. This one just popped into my head, so I will have to experiment with it.
-Doorways are small enough to block large zombies. This way may not be possible, will need to test
-If weather is implemented, roofs will take considerably more damage from weather
-Jumpers are not able to jump into inside buildings.

Comments?