[WIP] Army_of_undead

[spike2133]

To start off heres a description of the map.

You start of in a small area with no ceiling. You can see a Dark Caste and a hellish sky. You walk towards the door and it breaks down revealing some ghastly's. As you defeat more monsters, you keep moving onto harder and more monsters. You finally get to the rope bridge, and you cross over. The draw bridge is well guarded. If you get passed the bridge, the castle doors break open and you can. The castle isnt too big, but theres a few surprises in there awaiting.

I'm level 26, I'm aiming for this map to be a good lvl 25 and up, but mostly I would like to see people using teamwork. I don't think this will be a map to solo unless you have a lot of time to keep hiding and healing. Hopefully it will turn out as hard as I wish it to be. It more of an assault map type its not really a "worldly" map that has cliffs and envirnment. Only envirnment that makes this a bit different is my Blood Red Sky resembling evil or a hellish sky and the lava below you.

Screen shots will be up as soon as I can get the darn test to work, keep getting an error mod_Extra data: caching failed.

:::::::::::UPDATE::::::::::

I figured while i cannot test it in MSC, can't test the Monsters and such.
BUT! I threw it on CS and went into spectate to take a few screen shots for you guys Lol. So here they are, check em out, tell me what you think.

We will start out showing a screenshot of where you spawn first



Now we're gonna skip the whole part leading to the castle, because basically there are about 6 rooms that all look the same, they are more or less dungeon rooms, I might be adding an alternative way for after you beat the bosses in the castle to end it not in the castle. Also might be adding a Map leading to this one. We will see how much feedback I get from this one

Next three screen shots are just a few signs I threw in there for fun





Next I will show you a few random screenshots giving a nice view of the map.




and thats pretty much it for now, keep in mind these are screen shots taken in counter strike and have no monster entities.

FEEDBACK!
Post some feedback, suggestions etc etc etc

Spike loves feedback to try to make what the players want to see.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Map Progress: About 90% done just need to get this error dealt with and a few people (lvl25+) to come test with me. I think the error is just the listenserver screwing up.

Errors: Char loads, click on it, it loads up to 100 and boom crashed with error mod_Extra data: caching failed. If anyone has information on this error, please contact via PM or Post here.

 

[Sabre]

That looks pretty sick...But dark.

 

[evilsquirrel]

its potentially blocky, but i cant really tell because the screenshots are dark...

if i test, i might be able to help you make it look better - if it needs it, again, not sure :\

 

[FER]

only leave the sky red coloured, with black outlined clouds

 

[PBarnum]

potentially looks really good. keep it up.

 

[spike2133]

its potentially blocky, but i cant really tell because the screenshots are dark...

if i test, i might be able to help you make it look better - if it needs it, again, not sure :\

Well blocky is sort of what I was aiming for, because I'm looking for that certain old castle look, if you have any idea's how I could make it more creepy share.

Also a Reminder:

if anyone knows info on mod_Extra data: caching failed please do tell lol, its annoying me that I cant test the map because of this evil error repeating everytime i try. Like I said, i "think" it has to do with the listenserver because I've gotton it on other maps before when using a listenserver where if I played the same map on FN I would not get the error.

Ty all for your feedback, well appreciated
Keep it coming

~Spike

 

[spike2133]

That looks pretty sick...But dark.

Thank you

But Darkness means nothing in MSC thats why I love msc lol.

I make a dark map for counter strike people complain like crazy "i cant see wahhhhh" but in MSC you can use a torch or a glow spell and its easily lit up lol, one of the great reasons I love msc

PS supposed to be dark

you wouldnt use a white color to represent evil unless you're Mad.
Evil usually colored by red=Blood and black=Darkness mainly

 

[Tirex]

Reinstall MSC and the caching error will go away.... it helped me.

 

[spike2133]

Reinstall MSC and the caching error will go away.... it helped me.

Full reinstall? or just reinstall april patch?

 

[Tirex]

Full reinstall, the reinstallation of the patch didnt do anything for me exept for wasting my time >.>

 

[evilsquirrel]

thats not the problem...

as a temporary workaround for that caching error - start your listenserver on edana and changelevel to your map.

to completely fix it, you've gotta make any (and all) msarea_monsterspawn's that you have be triggered, not map start.


also, you can make it look like a castle without making it blocky. and i was referring to the area outside the castle that you might not want to be blocky - also keep in mind your r_speeds

wpoly count should stay under 2200 at ALL times (and it should only get this high in detailed areas without fighting)
if there is fighting involved, its best to keep it under 1000. if you have trouble lowering this, remember that HL1 doesn't really like wide open spaces, and to completely block visibility you need something to stretch from the ground to the skybrushes.

for this i'd suggest having the outside be your detail area, perhaps a few environmental hazards such as crumbling walkways, spike traps, pressure pads, and other such devices (as they don't use AI and as such do not generate much lag) if you really ned it, i would bet that thothie could make a few invisible npc's to kill or damage people with these traps, that way they would lose XP and money from traps too.

then you could have the players enter the castle, and decend into the torture chambers and such for the main fighting bits (this way you can make it not lag up much)

 

[spike2133]

if i stretched an invisible wall to the sky brushes would that work?

 

[Tirex]

Uh how can you start it if even Edana and absolutly all maps cause that error?

 

[spike2133]

"to completely fix it, you've gotta make any (and all) msarea_monsterspawn's that you have be triggered, not map start. "

explain better please?

I only have like 1 monster spawn at start the rest are triggered

 

[spike2133]

Uh how can you start it if even Edana and absolutly all maps cause that error?

Yeah i would think if you need to precach as many as possible, would have to go to a map with the monsters in my map, edana only has rats and boars, and I tried to go edana first and changelevel, same thing or char didnt load

 

[J]

He didn't say all maps cause it, Edana shouldn't. Give it a few seconds before changing the map to the next one, let Edana load completely.

And stretching an invisible wall to the sky will not work. In order to drop r_speeds you need to block visibility, an invisible brush does not do this.

 

[spike2133]

Tried doing from edana, when i changelevel my char isnt lit up so i cant choose it. Known cause of problem with that?

 

[spike2133]

He didn't say all maps cause it, Edana shouldn't. Give it a few seconds before changing the map to the next one, let Edana load completely.

And stretching an invisible wall to the sky will not work. In order to drop r_speeds you need to block visibility, an invisible brush does not do this.

yeah i figured that on the invisible brush Lol

 

[spike2133]

I still can't choose my char when i changelevel, its not lit up and doesnt let me choose it, and i cannot create a new one either. If anyone knows what's causing this, share

 

[Thothie]

You need to have both an ms_player_spawn and an ms_player_begin or your character will stay dim.

If you are getting Mod:extradata cache errors on Edana, you are SOL. Shouldn't happen. :/ I suppose if you get desperate, you can also try char_recover.

A single monster not tied to a triggered spawn can (and usually will) give you the extradata cache error. They ALL must be triggered. You can use a trigger_relay that removes itself (see spawn flags) with the targetname "game_playerjoin", and have it target a monster spawn that is tied to the monsters you want running about at the start of the map (say spawnarea "global" or spawnarea "first_wave" etc.)

 

[spike2133]

Started work on it again after a long delay of being frustrated and finally got it to work but the map was underwater for some reason when clearly the water (lava) is not anywhere near spawn. I changed a few entities and now cant load char lol. I need to learn more about msc mapping -.-

Precache error solved by the way, so this map is on its way.

 

[J-M v2.5.5]

What kind of shape did the lava brush have? A cube? A beam? If a func_water entity has a weird shape (such as a prism) it could fill your entire map. I've had that once and I was like "Woah!". Then I changed the shape of the entity to a beam and it was all good.

 

[spike2133]

hah, yeah i figured that out and it was like you said, a weird shape, i deleted it and ran the map and found it was the lava so im puttin that on hold untill i finish up the rest, id say about 95% done. This map is an assault type map, you and your friends bash your way through undead monsters to get to the dark castle to take out one of the main sources of evil that is destroying the balance bewteen good and evil. I tried to keep this map simple, the castle isnt huge inside either, theres only 2 rooms, the main courtyard and the throne room. But in the castle there are a few surprises waiting to be awoken. In this map you must defeat the whole wave of monsters to continue to the next wave. If you do not complete a wave, the next one wont come for you.

By the way, for some reason the environment light was giving problems. When I changed the color and went to test my map, it wouldnt let me click my character very very strange and awkward. I had it red, then changed to white and recompiled and I could choose my char. NOTE I didnt change anything but the light so it seems to be the problem of this even though its a very strange thing.