Different map versions(Day/Night or Summer/Winter)

[DraKon2k]

Hello,

yesterday I played some CSS custom maps, including a night & a winter version of de_dust2. I don't remember how many hours of my life in total I played that map, but it's definitely A LOT. That's why I was even more surprised by how different those maps felt with only so "little" difference. It was really a completely different atmosphere.

That's why I thought of this: Why not offer Day / Night versions of the 10 Maps? Not much would have to be tweaked(though I could imagine it to be tricky finding the right amount of darkness) and it would offer more variety. Thing is I don't know how many battles were fought during the night, but I read a few books by german soldiers on the eastern front and according to that night fighting happened.

Another idea is adding different seasons. Zetsumei brought this up in IRC if I remember correctly. It would also add a lot of variety, but personally I think it would require too much work because to show that the war has progressed further you would also have to change the position of rubble, level of destruction maybe etc. + it's probably not very authentic on some levels(not that I'd mind so much, but I know some people do), so I thought this would be better to have for community to do.

What do you think?

 

[FlyXwire]

Well, because the battle of Stalingrad became one of Rattenkrieg, involving even battles within the dark sewers, but more importantly, the Soviets turned to the night as a way to attack and neutralize German air power, night asaauits were prominent.

If not in the initial release, then map atmospherics could come as patch offerings or DLC.

 

[Zetsumei]

I hope that there will be different official versions of the same maps in different scenarios.

During the siege of Stalingrad a lot of places were fought for multiple times. At least once when the axis soldiers invaded, and when the allies pushed them back. So actually having a winter and summer version is not that unrealistic. At least for some maps like for instance the grain elevator. And often fighting continued over night or places taken by night were taken back by day.

Since there is a full destruction system in place. To simulate the destruction of later war maps a lot of the destruction could be done by changing the initial state of destruction for instance. Both different seasons and different times in a map would still require quite some time especially testing. However for the time of 1 completely new map you could get multiple altered versions of a regular map at a different time or season. While those altered maps do play and feel like completely different maps.

For instance zhitomir and zhitomir revenge play like 2 complete different so different that i for instance like zhitomir and hate zhitomir revenge. Changing the things as objectives, pathways, and direction of play the same basic structure can feel completely different.

Other things that could be nice, is as when playing with 64 players the maps offer a bigger playing area. That for instance with 32 or 16 players that you can play at different playing areas as you generally won't play over the entire map.

 

[Apos]

Ops idea was mentioned before.

Anyway if TWI doesn't release different version of their basic official maps, modders will do it.

 

[Dwin]

Great idea that should take relatively little effort and add lots more variety to the maps. Every map has different versions that take place during different times of the day and having different weather conditions. So for example, each of the 10 maps could have day, night, dawn and dusk versions as well as clear, overcast/raining/snowing, foggy versions, with the servers given the ability to mix and match these options/

 

[fiftyone]

Ops idea was mentioned before.

Anyway if TWI doesn't release different version of their basic official maps, modders will do it.

True.

 

[Zetsumei]

The thing is that exactly if it is official that it will reach a much wider audience modders will make a plethoria of things. This is for out of the box scenarios.

I for one would love to play a later war snow scenario of for instance the grain elevator.

 

[FlyXwire]

Well bust my britches, looks like we'll all be going down the tubes.

 

[Zetsumei]

thats fallen heroes. I think the leningrad map comes closer to a sewer system

 

[FlyXwire]

Ouch!