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Here we go with Shire! What treasures are to be found? Will your team “lord” it over your opponents? Or will your team take it up their “rings”? :) No matter how good you are, you might find this map has “Tolkein” its toll on your system! Ah hah! Ha! Ha…[sniff] *Ahem!* My apologies, but I have a penchant for excruciating puns and occasionally it gets the better of me and I vent. Let’s try and move on, shall we? Oh, by the way, this map has a “Lord of the Rings” influence… in case you missed it! (d’oh!)
I can hear the cries now! “Not another terrain map!” Shut up! We moaned forever at Epic for nice terrain in our maps for UT. Now you’re going to complain? True, there are some rather bland terrain maps out there, but always try them out because you never know! Where to begin? Ok, visually this map is very pretty with tall, rolling hills, a waterfall and river flowing through it with a bridge and rock structure enabling you to cross, as well as a small lake which can be crossed quickly thanks to a jump pad with LotR ring emitters for effect. From a visual standpoint this seemed a little clunky to me (maybe smaller with more particles?). The bases are the little cottages dug into the earth of two opposing hillsides. There are several paths from each base, one to the left, one to the right and… OMG! One through the middle! ;) Each path has its benefits and downfalls and you’ll need to consider your strategy carefully. One side path leads over a low bridge, predominantly along valley floors, and is very good for avoiding the “long arm of the lightning”; however, the hills are quite steep in places which means that flak, goo and rocket fights are less likely to end well. The path on the other side of the map leads to the lake-crossing jump pads (one at each end of the lake) and is good for putting some distance between your flag carrier and the defence; however, because they can use the jump pads too, you’ll secure only a brief reprieve. It’s possible to arrange an ambush at the other end of the jump, if you’re quick and the pursuing defenders are far enough behind or the carrier and/or escort are already suitably armed with flak and/or bio rifle. Most often it’s just better to run. Apart from the jump, once again you aren’t very exposed to snipers, and this path is a little more open giving you a better chance against any roaming opposition with the “splashy stuff” (ie. afore mentioned flak, bio or rockets). The central path is most probably the fastest as it’s the most direct; however, it also represents by far the greatest risk, as to use it requires use of either the bridge or the rock formation to cross the river (as the banks are too steep to wade across). This represents key exit and entry points on both structures allowing snipers ample time to track, zoom, lead and neutralise any flag carrier and any accompanying escorts. Effectively, this map represents what I would consider the essence of CTF routes, danger or distance.
All sweetness and light, so far, wouldn’t you say? Never one to allow sweetness to prevail for any length of time unless it was of personal benefit, I will point out several issues I had with the map, both minor and major. The author has done some work to improve performance with several antiportals; however, these brushes are sheets rather than three-dimensional shapes and therefore only provide real benefit when they are reasonably face on. Furthermore, given that the map allows access to many points on the outer areas of the map that have significant altitude, most of the map can be seen from many locations in which the optimisations are ineffectual. No doubt, a few of you may require a translation ;) There are simply a lot of places where triangles spike significantly. Many spots saw terrain triangles hit over 175,000 with static meshes topping 78,000 triangles or above. This represents over 250,000 triangles for the engine to deal with in terrain and static mesh alone, so needless to say you’ll require a sturdy rig to bear the burden. This could have been alleviated somewhat by use of three-dimensional antiportals and either raising the two central hills or lowering the outer terrain to break up the vistas. Still, anyone with a 1-1.3Ghz machine with GF4 or equivalent should have little problem. Next on my checklist are the fluid surfaces. There are two fluid surfaces in this map and both are woefully wasteful in their use. The first is stretched to provide the surface for the lake and the river in its entirety, stretching over 12000 Unreal units long by over 8000 Unreal units wide and only a portion of this actually visible above the terrain due to the orientation of the river. This waste is repeated on a smaller scale on the red side of the map with a few small puddles. Once again, there is a significantly higher percentage of fluid surface under the terrain than there is visible above it. All the time, the UT2003 engine has to draw all of the surface triangles whether you can see them or not. This is another instance where further optimisation could have been made. A further downside of the large fluid surface is that, as it can only use one environment map, bizarrely, you have the same reflection in the water on both sides of the map, and it doesn’t look right in either location! Another downside of the stretching is that the water loses detail in the ripples, and this is most keenly obvious at the base of the waterfall. All that water rushing down into the river, and the surface ripples the same as it does on the surface of the quiet lake on the other side of the map. A fluid surface oscillator or two were needed at the base of the waterfall, although they may not work effectively because of the stretching issues. Finally, the emitter at the base of the waterfall is ok, but it doesn’t cover the full width of the water so it looks odd. Furthermore, the fadeout time is too long and the texture becomes oversaturated, further detracting from the intended effect. Just nearby, the two huge cogs that are, one presumes, turned by the waterfall, are out of sync and run through each other. A little thing, but there are so many…
The map has a straight rip of the CTF-Magma skybox, replete with swirling, dark hurricane in the sky that looks terribly out of place in the sedate countryside. The skybox also doesn’t match the lighting in the map, more of which soon. There is also a large rock floating in the centre of the hurricane, the significance of which escapes me. Now that I’ve subtlety brought the subject of lighting into play, let's examine this aspect. The sunlight is courtesy of a light with the sunlight light effect. This works the same as a sunlight actor, as far as I know; however, it’s a lot easier to focus on a sunlight actor using “find” than having to scroll across to the skybox to select it. A future note for the author, use the sunlight actor rather than an ordinary light with a sunlight light effect. The colour of the sunlight could also do with a deepening because I don’t feel it really captures the colour of the skybox. Elsewhere, there are issues. White light abounds, indicating some carelessness. Never, ever, ever use plain white light. Just don’t. It should not be done. Don’t let it happen again. The map contains several lamps with nice coronas. The corona lights are coloured a subtle yellow, but for some inexplicable reason, the actual illuminating lights are white. Yellow coronas, white lights. Do you see the problem with this? This also happens inside the bases with lovely yellow/orange flames in torches casting a gentle glow of *gasp* white light! Hmmm. I also noticed a few naughty light placements inside the bases. You know, the kind where the author notices a dark spot somewhere and just puts a light in there with no light source whatsoever… and it’s white!!! [Gnashing of teeth]. There is also the odd light placed outside to illuminate a section of terrain that is in shadow from the sunlight. This ambient lighting is perfectly acceptable if it doesn’t break up the shadows too much, but guess what, those lights are [drum roll, please] white! If the lights are ambient light from the sunlight, they should have the same colour as the sunlight… or am I missing something elementary? I have one final note on lighting before I pull myself away from the subject, forcibly. In each base there is a large, round window that looks out onto the terrain. There is a nice static mesh of sunlight streaming inside from the window. The only problem is, the wall opposite the window is completely dark. Where did the sunlight go? Did it take a wrong turn at Albuquerque? Oh, of course, daylight saving! Let’s move on, shall we?
The bots. Gosh. Those crazy larrikins! They put up a reasonable fight, it must be said. Still, they don’t have much to work with. The botscape contains nary a single assault path, which, given it’s lack of usefulness on it’s own, is probably a good thing. What is an assault path? It’s a pointer for bots that enables you to ensure variety and strategy from bot opponents in objective-based game types, in particular BR and CTF. Not all the Epic/DE maps make use of this feature, but all mappers should! Check out Blitz’ awesome, in depth tutorial at LevelDesigner.com because any mapper making a CTF or BR map should know this stuff inside out! Sadly, the lack of assault paths means the bots behaviour is predictable to a fault. Bots move around their own base reasonably well, although they do tend to exhibit the same issues that are fatal when attacking the flag. Each base has three entrances. How many entrances do the attacking bots use? If your hand was cut off at the wrist, you could still count with the stump. To make matters worse, the entrances are small and narrow and defenders have ample access to the bio rifle. Woohoo, let’s all go live in spam city! As an added bonus, eradicated attacking bots often drop choice goodies like the flak or shock rifle! Little wonder, then, that the only time the attacking team got a single, solitary cap against my team was when the bots were set to godlike and they happened to attack in a group of three and I was left without backup. Defending is a breeze. The use of assault paths could ensure that bots always attacked in groups and used different entrances. A lone bot is sometimes left to defend the flag, but they sit right at the back of the base so dodging their bio rifle is easy enough. Again, an AI script for defence would improve matters if it were well placed. The bots do use the jump pads, but never to escape with the flag. In fact, they use the centre route about 75-80% of the time and the low valley for the rest. In fact, I think only the blue bots really used the jump pads, but hey, it’s on their side of the map, so why shouldn’t they? The bots penchant for using a single entry/exit point means that defenders don’t even have to be in the base to defend the flag. What do I mean? I mean that I grabbed a lightning rifle, some ammo and the ion painter (at the bottom of the lake), then headed over and camped on the roof of the enemy base. Zoomed in on the single entrance, I can get headshots by the dozen before a wandering bot notices me on the roof (when all he really popped up for is the small shield). To say the bots are like clockwork is an understatement. The proof? In said camping position on the roof of the enemy base with afore mentioned ion painter, zoomed in on the entrance, targeting the turf at the front of the door. Notification comes through that my flag has been taken, count to three (literally; one… two… three) and fire. See the hapless bots running out of your base on the other side of the map, gaily prancing about proclaiming themselves masters in the art of flag capturing, arriving to the rapturous applause of a thermonuclear detonation delivered from a satellite in a low, geostationary orbit. On this point, and for no good reason given all the technical wizardry the UT weapons display, the ion painter, above all others, seems thematically ridiculous in the extreme. For some reason I can wear the flak, rocket launcher… even the shock rifle, but seeing the ion painter in action? Well, it’s amusing in the rustic setting, but jars for some reason. Let me state plainly, this is a personal thing with no technical substance.
How are we going for time? Oh good, time for a few last points. There are several sections of the terrain that are very rough. I mean, unnecessarily rugged. The smooth tool should have been used here, as these areas are all within the normal flow of the game. I also felt that the centre hills should have the steepness of their sides reduced, as there are many points where the slopes are too steep to climb, and this will frustrate many players. Several textures were used on the terrain, but with almost no variation in colour, the visual impact of multiple textures is lost. When choosing textures for terrains, make sure there is good contrast between them, unless you will be using slow blending to transform the terrain slowly. The paths are a good idea, but the texture needs to be scaled a little larger and the paths need to be wider. In fact, overall, the terrain textures could most probably have done with being scaled up a bit. Finally, a brief revisit of the bases. The bases are small, but there’s nothing wrong with that. The curious part comes from the fact that each bases has about four to five zones assigned to it! I mean, that’s a lot of zones for a little space. And can you guess how many zones the massive outside area has so that you can pinpoint activity? The ugly stump where your severed hand used to be rises once more. That’s right, one. The author needs to learn the use of volumes. Place a straight volume in an area and you can give that volume (and hence, that area) a unique description. Things like “lakeside”, “crossing bridge” and “waterfall” are nice, descriptive terms that would help you interpret the constant deluge of radio chatter. Instead, once they head out of the heavily zoned bases, they become “outside”. Seriously.
With so many small flaws, and a few larger ones you might quite rightly expect a score in the region of 4 - 5, and it’s about this point in the review (or perhaps several paragraphs earlier) that Mr. Kent often says something like “I’d skip this map.” Well, firstly, you won’t be hearing that anymore because he’s been given twenty lashes (yet still manages to pump out those reviews… something to do with Skaarj talking about having several kilos of salt he needs to find a use for… or something). Secondly, this sucker is still on my HD. Oh, it will go eventually. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of its life, however… it has a beautiful Celtic music track (custom jobby here, no BSO), which gains it an extra point or two. Despite the several small, individual visual flaws, as a whole the map rates quite well graphically. Furthermore, while the bots have their weaknesses, the map is still fun to play on, and humans could really make it interesting, as long as they have a beefy system to play on! ;) And… well, the fact is sometimes I just like to fire up the map with no bots and wander around looking for a comfortable knoll to have a rest on and listen to the birds chirping and the water running over the rocks in the river, looking at the auburn sky and feeling Celtic. If that doesn't say something about how the map rates visually, what would? Please try.
Bottom Line: A masterpiece? No. Worth the download? Yes indeedy!
Score: 6.5
Average User Score: 7.1 (8 scores)
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Homeslice
By the way, it's Tolkien, not Tolkein.
2003-08-30 23:32:01
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Virax
Score: 7.5
The gameplay seemed fine to me, and the bases weren't like a maze for me at all. The terrain was quite iffy, but quite nice. I think the eye in the sky is good with the environment... sure, it clashes, but it makes it seem like an evil presence about to overtake a peaceful shire. I found the pathing to be quite good, but the map was also kinda laggy. Weapon placement was good, but not great.
2003-06-06 19:29:35
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ExiT
Score: 6.5
Wow...nice...
2003-06-06 08:40:54
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NOTINTHEFACE
Score: 6.0
Being a big LOTR fan, I think the visuals, especially the skybox, are sloppy on this map. The eye of Sauron was never seen from the Shire, and better terrain work, better pathing, and a different skybox would have made this a pretty good map. As it is, two clashing environments left me "counting the frags until next map". Or captures. Whatever. (quote from the tuts at Architectonic.)
2003-06-06 06:28:35
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SkaarjMaster
Oh great, both BUF forums and UP forums down at the same time. What are the odds of that?
Hmm, flag really hard to get and still a nine. Center really laggy and still an eight, hmmmmmm. :D
2003-06-05 20:10:00
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Clark Kent
Score: 7.0
I found the game play a little off at times but it's a cool map and nice idea.
2003-06-05 17:40:48
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Phalanx
Score: 8.5
wow i realy like it it looks good but the centre is realy laggy for me
2003-06-05 10:08:07
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SkaarjMaster
Score: 6.5
It's almost like he tried to combine all the elements of Lord Of The Rings into one map when he should have just stuck with the Shire proper. I can't remember for sure if the eye can be seen from the Shire, but if so, then it should be farther in the distance. It is tight in those bases and the map was kinda fun for a while though. There's a lot of stuff mentioned in this review that should be good info. for mappers.
2003-06-05 06:12:57
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Deathbliss
Score: 6.0
Thunderstrike... I think the rock and the storm were meant to signify the eye of Sauron, but it comes off as a cheap effect TOTALLY untrue to the atmosphere of the Shire. That compounded with the EXTREMELY poor terrain work, and dark mazelike buildings just make this map loose any potential it had. If the author brightens things up, makes the terrain more smooth and rolling, and adds a bright and cheery sky with moving clouds then we'd truly have a masterpeice on our hands. I advise the author to watch the movie again, and use the plentiful shots of the Shire portrayed there as a template for a better version of this map. Sketch stuff out too - I know a few folks design off the top of their heads (me too) but sketching as unatural as it seems at times actually helps a LOT!
Good try by the author, good idea, but I know they can do better -
- Deathbliss
2003-06-05 05:14:44
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Hitman
Score: 9.0
This map is beautifull, but I find the flag really hard to get(even more with instagib)
2003-06-05 03:51:57
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review
this is the longest review of all time for a sub 7 map.
2003-06-04 19:48:57
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