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Final Map KF-NorthSea

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Murphy

Murphy

Grizzled Veteran
Nov 22, 2005
7,067
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liandri.darkbb.com
#1
1. Name: NorthSea
2. Filename(s): KF-NorthSea.rom
3. Version: Final
4. Description: A map on a recently abandoned off-shore decontamination facility consisting of metal buildings connected via walkways. The theme is heavily inspired by the brilliant game Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance and of course it's Plant chapter in particular. It is different enough from its source material to not fall into the category of a rip-off but close enough to it to inspire some nostalgia, I hope.

The map uses no Killing Floor content except for
a) the 3d Horzine logo
b) the trader rooms so players feel at home...
c) the music
Killing Floor and Red Orchestra mappers are allowed to use 100% of what they find in the map as long as I get a small mention in the readme!

5. Story/Background:
-= In 2005 Horzine staged a tanker accident in the North Sea. The environmental catastrophy that ensued allowed the company to build a decontamination facility without raising suspicion. What the public didn't know was that the facility only served as a front for a submarine biotics lab.
Said lab was destroyed by the British Airforce in 2009 following the discovery of the illegal genetic experiments conducted by Horzine and securing plans of the installation in Horzine's head-offices. The nearby decontamination plant has not been targeted however, as it might still prove usefull in combating the aftermath of the tanker incident.
Your team of Special Forces is sent to cleanse the plant of any remaining specimens before a new crew is scheduled to be detached to the facility. =-

6. Screenshots:

11.jpg


6.jpg


15.jpg


16.jpg


7.jpg


Download from Rapidshare.com

Download from Mediafire.com

Download from Filefront.com

Download from moddb.com

Additional notes:
The map will compete in wave 1 of the grindhouse mapping contest.

The map is Final for the purpose of the contest.
I might revise it in the future if exploits or glitches are found and if someone finds out how to get ladders working I might add them back in. Also the item layout might be improved in the future. Small things like that.
So if you find anything you want changed (except something that would change the whole map...) please post it, even so it's final now.

Have fun!
 
Last edited:
#2
Good job,
Great big map.

Is it only me that the server crashes after ending the map?

Map list KF-NorthSea only.
KF-NorthSea -> KF-NorthSea change.

Log: Server switch level: KF-NorthSea
Log: Browse: KF-NorthSea?Class=Engine.Pawn?Character=Corporal_Lewis?team=1?Sex=M?game=KFMod.KFGameType?VACSecured=true?MaxPlayers=6?mutator=?Name=Z-MAN
NetComeGo: Close TcpipConnection ***.***.***.***:4619 07/31/09 19:59:13
Exit: Socket shut down
Log: (Karma): Level Karma Terminated.
Log: Collecting garbage
Log: Purging garbage
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetFullName
Critical: DispatchDestroy
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetFullName
Critical: DispatchDestroys
Critical: UObject::purgeGarbage
Critical: UObject::CollectGarbage
Critical: Cleanup
Critical: UGameEngine::LoadMap
Critical: LocalMapURL
Critical: UGameEngine::Browse
Critical: ServerTravel
Critical: UGameEngine::Tick
Critical: Level North Sea
Critical: UpdateWorld
Critical: UServerCommandlet::Main
Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError
Exit: Exiting.
Log: FileManager: Reading 0 GByte 476 MByte 834 KByte 286 Bytes from HD took 3.380976 seconds (3.262976 reading, 0.118000 seeking).
Log: FileManager: 0.276000 seconds spent with misc. duties
Uninitialized: Name subsystem shut down
Uninitialized: Log file closed, 07/31/09 19:59:15
 
Upvote 0
#3
I hate giving critical feedback 'cause I know how hard it is to make a good map, and how much skull sweat and pride goes into it. On the other hand I know how useful a clear critique can be in improving a map.

Let me start by saying that the map looks amazing, particularly your use of light and shadow. Awesome.

GAMEPLAY
- As a result of the sheer size of the map it can take quite some time for the specimens to reach you once they've spawned, which results in lengthy stretches where nothing happens. When specimens finally start appearing they can be quite spread out, meaning reduced pressure on the player - it's easier to take down specimens one at a time than in a horde.

- The spaces that make up the map are also too large. You've got some very wide open spaces that give the player a little too much room to maneuver. It's very easy to get the specimens to "line up" in these open spaces and kill them one at a time. The large open spaces are also visually uninteresting and could do with the addition of a lot more detail.

- The staircases could be narrower, maybe exactly wide enough for two players to pass one another. It would restrict the player's movement and increase the tension.

- The glass panels over the catwalk. I thought they were holes until I noticed one of the specimens walking on them. You might consider making their texture dirtier or more reflective so the player can tell it's a solid surface.

- The railing in the screenshot below... I really wanted to be able to jump over it and onto the spiral staircase but couldn't. I know you've probably got blocking volumes all over the place to stop the player from jumping into the sea, but it would make a fun gameplay moment to be able to do it here. You'd have to signal to the player somehow that it was possible at this point though - for example, leaving a gap in the railing. The alternative would be to add something to make it clear why the player can't just jump the railing, such as a fence or other obstacle.


- The door in the screenshot below, you have a few like this. It's not clear that they're locked, or that the player can't open them. A note like in BioticsLab saying that the door is locked would help. Another possibility would be to put a red light over all the locked doors, and a green light over the unlocked ones, just so the player doesn't get confused and frustrated.


COSMETIC
This stuff is purely aesthetic and doesn't affect the gameplay in the map.

- The level text goes outside the text box! See the screenshot below.


- The light beams against the evening sky look wrong, as they're darker than the sky itself. I think I saw this issue elsewhere in the map as well... Is there a different rendering option you can use to solve this?


- The cockroaches are fantastic, really very cool. They seem very... large though. Could they be a bit smaller? Also it would be great to set up a script to turn their emitter on and off as players walk by, avoiding the steady stream of them coming from the corpse. Also, is it possible to use a 2-frame animation for their sprite? It might make them look more like they're crawling, rather than gliding across the floor :)

- The change in fog settings from inside to outside is very noticeable, especially when standing just inside a doorway looking out (or vice versa). See the screenshots and you'll see what I mean - I just stepped a foot or so forward to have the fog kick in and the difference in colour is very apparent.




- The floating bodies in the swiming pool are a nice touch, but they're animating too quickly. Their bobbing should be much, much slower, as if they're being gently nudged around by air currents.

- Same goes for your ocean fluid surface... The waves are too big and moving too fast, like ripples on a small pond rather than the surface of the sea. Can you slow them down?

- Is your fluid surface in the skybox? It makes the pylons pop out of the fog - see the screenshot.


- The textures are generally too clean. The map's atmosphere might benefit from a "dirtying up". A sea rig like this, I'd expect to see rust everywhere...

When all is said and done this is still an incredibly impressive map, miles beyond most of the work seen here. Best of luck for the contest!




 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
#4
Z-MAN said:
Good job,
Great big map.

Is it only me that the server crashes after ending the map?

Map list KF-NorthSea only.
KF-NorthSea -> KF-NorthSea change.

Log: Server switch level: KF-NorthSea
Log: Browse: KF-NorthSea?Class=Engine.Pawn?Character=Corporal_Lewis?team=1?Sex=M?game=KFMod.KFGameType?VACSecured=true?MaxPlayers=6?mutator=?Name=Z-MAN
NetComeGo: Close TcpipConnection ***.***.***.***:4619 07/31/09 19:59:13
Exit: Socket shut down
Log: (Karma): Level Karma Terminated.
Log: Collecting garbage
Log: Purging garbage
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetFullName
Critical: DispatchDestroy
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetPathName
Critical: UObject::GetFullName
Critical: DispatchDestroys
Critical: UObject::purgeGarbage
Critical: UObject::CollectGarbage
Critical: Cleanup
Critical: UGameEngine::LoadMap
Critical: LocalMapURL
Critical: UGameEngine::Browse
Critical: ServerTravel
Critical: UGameEngine::Tick
Critical: Level North Sea
Critical: UpdateWorld
Critical: UServerCommandlet::Main
Exit: Executing UObject::StaticShutdownAfterError
Exit: Exiting.
Log: FileManager: Reading 0 GByte 476 MByte 834 KByte 286 Bytes from HD took 3.380976 seconds (3.262976 reading, 0.118000 seeking).
Log: FileManager: 0.276000 seconds spent with misc. duties
Uninitialized: Name subsystem shut down
Uninitialized: Log file closed, 07/31/09 19:59:15
Click to expand...
I had a problem with the first version, whenever we finished KF-NorthSeaV1 and voted for a new one the server would launch the first map on the rotation, ignoring the vote result. I wondered if it would persist in this version, seems so...
 
Upvote 0
#5
Would have been useful to know that before the final.;)
Either way, I have no idea what could cause it, I don't know how I could fix this. The log the Z-MAN posted above tells me nothing that I could use to fix anything (not your fault, Z-MAN! Thank you for the log!).

I'm sorry for crashing your servers with a broken map, but I really don't have the slightest clue what could have went wrong there.:(

@IrritAnt: Thank you. This is very valuable.
About the doors: I specifically used those door models for doors that can't be used by the player. Every door that is locked or unusable uses this model. It thought this was clear enough after a few tries (and those tries would haveb een necessary with a "LOCKED FOO'" message too). Guess not, lol.
I'll add a "locked" door triggers in a revised version.
About the cockroaches: Cute, eh?:) I painted them in Paint.NET from scratch and initially had them much smaller and more numerous but although they were visible it was almost impossible to make out any detail on them. I ended up making them huge partly because they are even more disgusting in their own cute way but mostly because I wanted to show them off.:eek:
About the dirtying up: It would certainly look good. Probably better than it does now. My reasoning is that this is basically a basterdized version of the Big Shell from Metal Gear Solid 2, and it's pretty clean. Here are screenshots of a pretty faithful remake of Big Shell someone did for GTA, as it seems. They show off the complex better than actual ingame screenshots of MGS2 because they show much larger areas of it:
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=266689
I wanted my map to look similar to that and just give it my own hellish KF spin, but not to the point that it becomes unrecognizable.
The glass: Noted.
The water: I had a real ocean (as in, water in the map instead of in the skybox) before, but I had to make the water very large and it had to have a very high resolution so it looked good and meshed up with the skybox at its end. Putting the water in the skybox allowed me to use a much smaller resolution for the fluidsurface info with only minor visual trade-offs.
The level text: I know but I feel the ball is in TWI's court on this one. I could shorten it, I guess and if I get the vibe that this is a big deal to people I will.
The lightbeams: Yeah, they pretty much suck. I'll have to change those in a revised version too.
Boring, bland, open spaces: True.
 
Upvote 0
#6
Here's what I posted in the Moddb.

Your architectural ability is clearly evident at every turn and you have also added some wonderful fillers such as: sliding seagull poop, fishtanks, feasting bugs and wonderful water emitters.



The only issue I had was that it could often take the bots a long time to meet you and also some of the horizontal and vertical pipes in the play area could have done with collision as I was able to pass through them; namely a drop from one platform where a safety barrier was removed and also when walking across the glass bottomed area.


Overall this is an outstanding map that I'd like to play with more than the 6 players currently supported. Is that a seagull I hear? It's very subtle but reminds me of my hometown.


9/10
 
Upvote 0
#7
Thank you for the compliments.
I'm glad you like the special effects. :)

That's a flock of seagulls you hear, yes. If you walk towards the bathing complex from the starting point, look up towards the roof: Seagulls will be startled by your presence and fly away towards the sunset. Another flock is on the messhall building and will fly off if you walk towards it through the tube.

The pipes in the middle don't have collision because players could camp on them and zombies couldn't reach them. The safety rails were removed so players can drop down without having to walk a long walk to get there. I initially had ladders there so they could move up as well, but I had to remove them because specimens weren't able to attack players that stayed on the ladder, while the players could still attack them.
 
Upvote 0
#9
Hey.

Hey.

Hi Murphy. I found one issue. I could not get back through the hoard to get a screen shot. After you go through the first set of doors, you spawn by, go down then back out the other side on the platform. On top out in the open. There is a spot with no rail you can see the big pipes below. I thought it might be a walk way. So I jumped on the pipe. Fell straight through. I was on a lower level trapped:mad:. So I left and came back. Other then that it was fun. Huge. I mean huge map. I love the ocean and sounds. Good job.
 
Upvote 0
#14
I want to see the bugs' legs exhibiting parallax occlusion goddamit! :p

REAL MAPPERS use a buffer overflow in the unrealscript virtual machine to eggdrop patch in support for hardware accelerated parallax mapping in the material shader code live in GPU memory.

REAL MAPPERS would make the bugs solve travelling salesman with their pathing in polynomial time and claim the $1 million Clay Mathematics Institute prize for proving P=NP.

REAL MAPPERS produce such advanced unrealscript it becomes self-aware and licenses itself out to defence contractors producing giant killer robots as part of its bid for world domination / winning the Grindhouse competition through military force.
 
Upvote 0
#20
I played this map a few days ago on Solo.

At first, looking at the layout of the map annoyed me. I couldnt understand where to go, or where to escape.

But i over come that by playing it more! :D

The textures were perfect, meshes were excellent. But the only thing that let it down was the actual gameplay.
It took a while to find the specimens (which was due to the fact they spawned the other side of the map!) So i got a bit bored :(
Although, i have not played it online yet. Im expecting it to be a completely different experiance.

I have'nt looked at the build in the UED yet, so i am not sure how many spawns you have placed.

But from a mappers point of view, it was beastie in terms of design thought/creativity. But lacking in actual gameplay.
But thats my opinion anyway!

I am expecting this map to make it in the top three :)
 
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