magma facility

[win3k]

Evening chaps

My thoughts: Yes, No, Cancel.
1. Make the entire world coherent. It makes no sense that in some areas gravity applies, yet in other areas (apparently, similar areas), it does not.

2. That weird pod thing? Don't go there. Abusing backfacing polygons does not work. Stop it.

3. Teleporters should give you some clue that they are, in fact, teleporters.

4. Derez has pickups, that don't require the "use" key. This is for a reason.

5. Permissions are there for a reason. Random (single spawn) ICPs are not that reason.

Also: what has this to do with Minecraft?

<edit>Too negative, and missed out the things I liked:

The two enclosed areas (one like a maze and one like a series of ramps) could be a lot of fun; very claustrophobic, and I like the fact that you've made decent use of the vertical dimension - most maps don't do this.

The "elevator steps" thing, like X said, is an interesting effect - maybe think about using either geometry or textures to give players a hint of what these things are?

In short, I think you have the basis of a playable map here, but there are one or two areas that could be improved. Your texturing (in the ramp room) could be sharpened up by dealing better with the edges of the ramps (at the moment, your texture coordinates aren't mapped to the geometry correctly, so the clean grid look of the main surfaces isn't mirrored on the edges.

I would look again at some of the more off-the-wall features (AI, backfacing geometry), and think about how this would play out over a 15 minute game. Pretty much the first player to rez-in will kill the AI, so what are they there for? AI in MP maps should, in any case, be treated with caution, as the engine doesn't really support them that well (latency issues between clients, missing animation frames etc). If you are the player in the backfacing pod, you can be attacked and seen, but cannot attack (or see) back, so why would anyone want to go in there? The no-gravity area might be a bit problematic, because the engine doesn't support a full 3D camera (unlike Descent, for example) so aiming directly upwards/downwards is difficult.

win3k

[TronFAQ]

Some quick feedback:

• I like the use of textures in this map. You've used the game's existing textures in an aesthetically appealing, creative way.
• I take it the AI are supposed to attack, instead of just standing around. But having the AI so close to where players spawn is a bad idea. If they could attack, they'd immediately pound on the players when they rez-in which isn't fun. If they're not meant to attack, then I don't know what they're there for? They'd serve no purpose. I also don't see what the permissions are for, because there doesn't seem to be any way to use them in the map.
• The upper green floor near where you spawn is too transparent. You can barely see it. The transparency should be reduced to make it more visible.
• The others have already mentioned the teleports/lifts. Interesting concept, but I'm afraid most players won't understand what they're for.
• It's not clear that players won't fall if they enter the zero-gravity room. There should be some kind of obvious hint that you can enter that area and you'll float. Like objects that seem to be free-floating, some kind of energy field filling the room, or even a sign that has writing on it to let people know it's zero-grav.
  
  I also think that instead of a Ladder volume, a Gravity volume would work better. But that's up to you.