Hey guys, my brother (who is a map designer) has been working on a new map, and we need some bodies to give it a good testing!

The map is rather unique. It has 5 points, A, B, C, D and E and it follows the premise of gravelpit, in that there are always 2 points in play at any time (unless A-D have been captured) and BLU are attacking RED. However where it differs is E, the central final point, is available to capture at any time. What the 4 outer points do is progressively make it easier for BLU to capture the middle point.

At the start, if BLU were to go straight for E, they'd find RED's spawn in between them and the cap, and also only one nasty chokepointy way to get there. Not forgetting that, um, there's no way to get on the cap save for double jumping as a scout or rocket/pipe jumping!



By going for point A, BLU can open up an extra route to point E. Ok, it's still impossible for anyone bar scouts, demos and soldiers to capture E, but now RED can't just concentrate on holding a simple chokepoint to defend E.



You can see the door in question under the red E sign at the back of the cap.

Ok, so now we've opened two routes to the cap, but damn, having RED spawn in between the BLU spawn and the cap is annoying! If only there was some way to move it...

Ah yes. Capture point B to the rescue!



By capping point B, you move RED's spawn back to the other side of Capture Point E, stopping them from spawning in the midst of your assaults. It also opens a route from B to C, allowing quick access to C.

So, we've got two routes to E, and we've moved RED's spawn a more pleasing distance away from the BLU spawn and E. It'd be nice if we could let spies, medics, heavies, pyros, engineers and snipers help us cap E though... Hmm... if only there was a capture point that provided some kind of easier access to E...



Capping C (it's tough, because it's near the new RED spawn) will result in this happening:



and now everyone can join in the capping fun! This just leaves point D, which is pretty much an optional, er, optional cap point (NB: it hasn't been textured properly yet!).



D is really tough to cap as it's not just far away from the BLU spawn, it also has the RED spawn right next to it. What D does is block RED's quick routes from their spawn to E, forcing them to take a longer, more circuitous route to E.



The fact that it (as well as all points) also adds an extra 3 minutes to the clock could make it worth the assault for a time-short team!

A victorious BLU team can look forward to not only stopping RED's heinous satellite launch by crippling their rocket, but also the spoils of victory!



Ok, spiel aside, we've been been trying to build this map from a gameplay point of view. Rather than designing a beautiful map that plays like shit, we've been testing this map from it's blocky untextured phase through to the semi-completed phase it stands at now. What we've been missing though, is a proper stress test. We'd like to see a few games on it with at least 10 v 10, and see how it plays out. I know you guys are well into playing custom maps so I'm hoping that you'll be only too happy to help me gather up some bodies from the |H|H| community to make this happen!

The map link is here: http://skeebz.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... _test8.zip

Oops, forgot to post the known bugs! Where better to hear them than from the horses' mouth?

Fishbus: there's a lot of texturing errors
Fishbus: lighting is strewn together in a lot of areas
Fishbus: some mild clipping bugs (eg, not smooth movement around doorways)
Fishbus: while some areas look completed, that does not mean they are finished. Likewise, there are a lot of unfinished areas too that look like they have been neglected
Fishbus: some roof areas are accessible, whether they stay in or not is undecided
Fishbus: ammo and health are placed sporadically in some areas
Fishbus: signage is mostly all there, some places might seem sparse however
Fishbus: There are still a lot of "placeholder" corridors

Also, there's an annoying bug with the capture points that hasn't been squished yet. Basically RED can't block captures by standing on the point, with the exception of C. It hasn't made *too* much difference yet but I feel this may shine through in a larger game. We'll see though!

Wow, this looks really good and I can't wait to try it Sort out the little things and you'll have a great map, well done!

That looks like a really good map, i would join in on the testing.

Even though you may not have made it to be good looking it still look really nice. Am not sure about the point where only scouts, demo's and soldiers can only cap it but that is what playtest are for.

Very Good Work.

Just to clear up any confusion, E starts off that way but after you cap C it adds walkways to the cap so all classes can get there.

Ohh ok, pretty clever never seen that one before.

Looks like a great unique design. I'm definitely up for some proper playtesting.

looks good, wish i had the time to help you test it

I tell you what would be good to see, yet highly ambitious and difficult to implement. Have the rocket launch if the reds win, or have bits blow off if the blues win.

We did discuss something like that, but I think it might be too hard to implement successfully. At the least, we're hoping to have the rocket's engines start firing if RED win!