Dynasty
Team Deathmatch / 8 - 16 players / Large / Intermediate / Gothic
Dynasty, formerly known as Domain of Red Snakes, is a large arena designed for TDM. You can also play it in FFA games of up to about 10 players, or Large Clan Arena games of up to 16 players, but due to it`s size it`s not fit for dueling.
The map`s history is surprisingly long - construction on the very first version of the map actually began shortly after Training Day was finished, and long before Tactical Assault`s first brushes were even laid down. While some basic rooms are recognizable, when compared and examined closely there are several major differences. The map was a lot more (almost too) vertical, and a few of the rooms had completely different layouts. For example, the Statue / YA room was far more complex with three floors and the MH room was instead an accel pad over void with SG. The map was not finished when the competition started, and I decided to shift priority to Tactical Assault at that time. The theme was similar to Team Arena`s / Dreamcast Q3`s "Evil Playground".
After the competition, I went back and took another glance at this map. I realized that the aesthetics were sloppy and that too much messy work would be required to save it. I also decided at this time to switch to GTKRadiant 1.4 from QuArK due to issues which scourged the latter, including the lack of ability to see curve textures and general performance problems. These facts considered, I felt it necessary to scrap the entire arena and start from scratch. Despite these circumstances, I felt motivated to re-do the project and in the end I felt that the effort was worth it, and ended up much better than the first version.
Carefully studying the works of Pawel "ShadoW" Chrapka, a prominent Quake III and Quake Live mapper, I established a Mediterranean-Gothic theme with somewhat of a "royal" feel to it. I had the desire to create a gothic map with a unique feel compared to that of the majority of arenas with similar characteristics. I broke away from the usual red tones of the id maps in favor of greens and golds. In combination with some rocky formations and plant life, including trees from Victor "DaEngineer" Karp, the results suggest an "organic" feel, as if nature is slowly reclaiming this mighty fortress. It bears a good resemblance to the architecture and coloring of Florence, Italy. I also attempted to add more height to this map than my previous ones - almost anywhere in the map where the sky is seen above, you can spot the tall structures composing the castle. Most of the textures come from CGTextures and ShadoW.
Although the map is rather enormous and complex, you can travel through it with great speed due to the accelerator pads. Challenge Pro Mode physics open up plenty of trick-jumping possibilities, particularly ramp jumps and some mid-air turns that require the mod`s increased air control capabilities to undertake. That said, it works just fine in vq3 physics. A neat gimmick, inspired heavily by Team Arena`s Assassin`s Roost, is a crusher activated by two buttons. Either one can be pressed for it to drop, but one is attached to a panel with a viewing screen that allows you to watch for players grabbing RA even though the walls are blocking your vision otherwise.
The arena garnered much community support, and even earned a spot on #uscpmpickup`s "Map of the Week". Oranje also decided to pick it up, as with Tactical Assault. I really began to experiment with more advanced level design concepts such as terrain blending and custom models. MuffinMan assisted in solving many of the model issues, for which I am grateful.
The map`s history is surprisingly long - construction on the very first version of the map actually began shortly after Training Day was finished, and long before Tactical Assault`s first brushes were even laid down. While some basic rooms are recognizable, when compared and examined closely there are several major differences. The map was a lot more (almost too) vertical, and a few of the rooms had completely different layouts. For example, the Statue / YA room was far more complex with three floors and the MH room was instead an accel pad over void with SG. The map was not finished when the competition started, and I decided to shift priority to Tactical Assault at that time. The theme was similar to Team Arena`s / Dreamcast Q3`s "Evil Playground".
After the competition, I went back and took another glance at this map. I realized that the aesthetics were sloppy and that too much messy work would be required to save it. I also decided at this time to switch to GTKRadiant 1.4 from QuArK due to issues which scourged the latter, including the lack of ability to see curve textures and general performance problems. These facts considered, I felt it necessary to scrap the entire arena and start from scratch. Despite these circumstances, I felt motivated to re-do the project and in the end I felt that the effort was worth it, and ended up much better than the first version.
Carefully studying the works of Pawel "ShadoW" Chrapka, a prominent Quake III and Quake Live mapper, I established a Mediterranean-Gothic theme with somewhat of a "royal" feel to it. I had the desire to create a gothic map with a unique feel compared to that of the majority of arenas with similar characteristics. I broke away from the usual red tones of the id maps in favor of greens and golds. In combination with some rocky formations and plant life, including trees from Victor "DaEngineer" Karp, the results suggest an "organic" feel, as if nature is slowly reclaiming this mighty fortress. It bears a good resemblance to the architecture and coloring of Florence, Italy. I also attempted to add more height to this map than my previous ones - almost anywhere in the map where the sky is seen above, you can spot the tall structures composing the castle. Most of the textures come from CGTextures and ShadoW.
Although the map is rather enormous and complex, you can travel through it with great speed due to the accelerator pads. Challenge Pro Mode physics open up plenty of trick-jumping possibilities, particularly ramp jumps and some mid-air turns that require the mod`s increased air control capabilities to undertake. That said, it works just fine in vq3 physics. A neat gimmick, inspired heavily by Team Arena`s Assassin`s Roost, is a crusher activated by two buttons. Either one can be pressed for it to drop, but one is attached to a panel with a viewing screen that allows you to watch for players grabbing RA even though the walls are blocking your vision otherwise.
The arena garnered much community support, and even earned a spot on #uscpmpickup`s "Map of the Week". Oranje also decided to pick it up, as with Tactical Assault. I really began to experiment with more advanced level design concepts such as terrain blending and custom models. MuffinMan assisted in solving many of the model issues, for which I am grateful.
Video (By FiDestiny):
Download: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27277779/pasdm1.zip
QL Version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27277779/dynasty.zip
Play at Oranje`s server: 208.100.42.49:27960
Map Source: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27277779/pasdm1.map
QL Version: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27277779/dynasty.zip
Play at Oranje`s server: 208.100.42.49:27960
Map Source: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27277779/pasdm1.map
Dynasty by Ricardo "EmeraldTiger" Stevenson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
