@ Text, I’ve updated my post #1129 on page 57, with some additional comments. I wanted to keep them within that particular forum post, which includes my initial feedback report for OaR Uncut Alpha1-B1. Please venture there to read my new comments.
Thanx, and once again, AWESOME job on OaR Uncut Alpha1-B1.
I had same problem with turntable too. it was so funny that i had to make a video of it 
Your video was great! I kind of got motion sickness while watching it, and “mentally” puked. In my mind, you owe me a new keyboard, buddy.
@TextFAMGUY1 I added some more feedback on my post #1110 in page 56.
Edit: I decided to put them right here as well.
On a Rail Uncut Alpha Feedback for Map B1 (continued)
Here’s a video for both #12 and #13.
Edit: One more thing…
That’s all the feedback I can come up with for now. I’ll add a little more if I find anything else.
Just wanted to get a couple ideas off my chest.
Considering the tow launcher area, are the vorts that spawn around him needed? that skirmish should be just between the grunt, the launcher and you. The vorts distract the player from seeing the tram coming at you from the opposite end of the tunnel. We already face a lot of them in your maps, whose going to miss 4 more.
Now for the real reason of this post. Text, I love your turntable ambush but the intro to it can feel a little overwhelming and scripted to the player. Look at the way you currently have it set right now. The moment the player enters the area and hits the “trigger” you have the lights go out(add a sound of them going out btw), flares thrown, and the music queued all within the same second. It really feels preplanned and scripted. I realize this is alpha, its an ambush that’s suppose to be in your face and subject to change. However, consider trying this. Once the player hits the “trigger” have the lights go out(pause 1-2 seconds) throw the flares (pause 1-2 seconds) queue the music. It really doesn’t sound like it would make a huge difference, but consider it. Little details make a big difference.
I had a very similar idea for the ambush, except the music would start after you see and hear the lights go out.
The main reason for that is because the Soldiers are not programmed to reload the TOW, so there needed to be an excuse for him not to (Alien attack).
Pre-facing this bugs and small issues post with the fact that I LOVE this map. It really turned out amazing and I’ve already had a ton of fun playing through it a number of different times. You did an incredible job on this text.
Also please PLEASE keep the turntable room as hard as it is now. Video games need to have difficult parts that leave you room to improve. After playing the turntable room several times I nailed down a strategy and improved my play. This was FUN. If it’s so easy that you can beat it the first time with little effort than it will lose a lot of what makes it exciting.
With that said I am not a big fan of the vortiguants on the upper tier that have strange behavior after everyone else is dead. It comes off as buggy when you can see them and you’re in plain sight of them, but they don’t shoot at you. Personally I would rather no vortiguants spawned up there for this reason and instead more would spawn on the second level.
https://youtu.be/B17iIeTmcps
In this video Thundaga posted you can see a bug that I had where strange lines were drawn across the turntable room after the ambush. It looks like they are being caused by the repelling grunts in some way.
https://i.imgur.com/vBD9LcO.jpg
If you look up in the first room where the launch pad access is blocked you’ll see these odd little half circle things. They are thin and don’t look like the ends of pipes or anything so they just look really weird and out of place. Remove them?
https://i.imgur.com/J3ejF6g.jpg
Maybe it’s just because you’ve been labeling all of the switches in your maps, but I felt like this first console button really needs a label saying access to mat. transport or security door or something along those lines.
https://i.imgur.com/hOiG5sd.jpg
This is virtually unattainable unless you spend time shooting it into the perfect position.
https://i.imgur.com/Ppu40JT.jpg
I dunno what to think about this phantom hecu TOW marine. Usually I am open to exploring and not blocking off parts, but this just feels really odd when you continue on foot past the boom gate and there’s nobody there and then when you’ve cleared the other hallway and the marines guarding the security switch you come back and suddenly he’s there. He essentially came out of nowhere. Maybe you could make that boom gate a security door and have the double doors that lead to that area locked, both would open when you pressed the security switch upstairs.
https://i.imgur.com/pKDvP07.jpg
All of the other moving crates on the level seem logical, but these two tracks seem to be pretty pointless the way they are now. Maybe you could have the stationary hanging crate lowered down a few more feet on a wire to give the impression that crates were put onto the trams on the tracks below from this area. Otherwise why would they go there at all?
https://i.imgur.com/i3cZGsA.jpg
The HECU voice “shoot him in the face” seems to originate too far ahead of where the actual marines on the tram are at the time. If possible move the sound origin back a good ten feet and test accordingly. Hilarious seen btw and please keep this line in.
https://i.imgur.com/2IWkAh5.jpg
After I was done with the turntable room I had to backtrack pretty far to find my original tram. This happened because the other tram continued on to this area when I jumped off mine and you’re unable to back up the hijacked tram when it goes into this stop. Maybe you could make it so you can back it up at this point and drive it into the turntable room?
https://i.imgur.com/CA8wgjz.jpg
In the turntable room it’s really easy to jump up from the forklift into the area where these boxes are going and take the turn to find walls with no textures on the other side. Consider putting a player block here. This is probably true of the opposite side as well.
https://i.imgur.com/Z7pO80y.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/dh5LDLS.jpg
No textures here.
https://i.imgur.com/0ZlYCiu.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/905FxmR.jpg
More no textures.
https://i.imgur.com/aH7m46v.jpg
Consider adding an elevator button at the top and bottom for the lift the marines take up. It doesn’t make sense for there not to be buttons for this lift.
https://i.imgur.com/ReaXWhI.jpg
I really like that you added in these electricity beams, but I think this area could be improved by having the two lights above this area out making the lighting of the hallway come from the alternating beams and otherwise being much darker. This would be a cool effect.
https://i.imgur.com/M2dDyQt.jpg
There is not enough room here for gordon to fit and get what’s there.
Precisely. No other option made sense. The Soldier just jumping off the TOW for no reason would be even stupider. I wouldn’t have added the Vorts otherwise.
I will test this next time I work on B1, but I’m pretty sure all that is very easily fixable, just by having the train disable the previous path_tracks on the turntable as it passes them. I’ll see what I can do.
Did you really need to call the ambush sloppy? I worked seriously fucking hard on it, it took me at least 6 hours just to get the turntable working in its current, buggy state. There is a VERY good reason why everything happens so quickly, and it’s because of the way in which AI and physics objects behave on the Source engine. It has nothing to do with my work on that scene being “sloppy”. If I introduced the delay, as you’re suggesting, it would be very possible, and easy, for a player approaching from the side, to walk up to the Marines before they throw the flares. It would break the scene completely, because not only would the Marines be sat there crouching, ignoring you (due to how scripted_sequences work) but the Flares would be floating there in mid air, unignited (due to how physics objects work, I can’t hide them).
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad idea, and I’d love to have things a little bit more spaced out, and I’ll see what I can do about it. I can, and will, certainly add a sound for the lights going out. Just please don’t call my work sloppy when you don’t really know the workings behind it. I know that little details make a big difference.
EDIT: Regarding the “misplaced” battery at the start of the interior section which people keep pointing out - it’s very easy to obtain - pick it up with E! Same with the one at the end of the level.
EDIT 2: Lots of great feedback has been raised by posters today. Some of the more easy to address things I will talk about tomorrow. Really tired right now though, so will disappear to bed! Work begins on B2 tomorrow!
Speaking of the lights going out, would it be bad of me to ask for them to just go out instantly and come on the same way (or maybe have them come on in sections)? Something about the dimming and undimming bothers me, I’m not sure what or why. But it’s enough to kinda make me wanna not touch the light switch.
Alright maybe sloppy was horrible word to use, so I apologize for that. So much so I went back to change it. Let me reword it better, everything about your ambush during and after was superb. Its just those first few seconds introducing it I thought that could use a touch up.
^@Someguy if you think about it the lights going out in a flash is ok and the way he has it now, coming on slowly is realistic because it takes a second or two for them to warm up.
Don’t be silly, it wasn’t horrible, just the wrong word to use! It’s cool, there are no hard feelings whatsoever. I agree with your points, it would be nice to stagger things out a bit. The problem is just the timing. It needs to be quick enough that the player CANNOT get up to the Marines during that time, otherwise the scene gets broken, and I’m pretty sure if I slow it down ANY more than it is now, that will happen. I’ll test it out though, and see what I can come up with.
The undimming makes sense, it’s just the lights “powering up”, so to speak. Trust me, it looks a lot better than the lights immediately coming on. I will make it so that the lights always go out instantly though, except perhaps with a slight delay. Adding the sound, as Strider asked for, should help a lot too.
Some interesting things here, but not all of these are bugs.
Not really a bug. It’s supposed to be like that - having them at different heights make it just that little bit more challenging. Plus the body is kinda “hidden” behind the metal support.
Yep, will do. It’ll still be possible to walk over to it from the tracks though, but should make it harder. I’ll also add a locked set of doors behind the TOW so that the Marine doesn’t seem like he’s appeared magically.
The track looks fine to me. Do you mean visually or design wise? The track’s running through a gate which can be closed or opened to block access to the track - it’s used on the C map as well. I’ll put some wheels on the sliding gate part.
That’s a weird bug! I have absolutely no idea why that would be happening! I’m going to change that control panel (and the corresponding one on A2 as well) for the more bold one with the big red “activate” button on it, anyway.
The Vorts never appearing is how that scene’s meant to be if you kill the Marine before he fires the TOW, but the Marines getting stuck there is weird. I’ll look into it. That scene uses 3 triggers, one before the TOW, one after the TOW, and one on the path where the enemy tram gets stuck. The one before the TOW activates their tram, the place on the path makes the tram stop. The idea here is that the player will see the tram coming out, but might be focussed on fighting the TOW. I gave the player leeway to engage/focus on the TOW is necessary. They’re then supposed to hit the trigger AFTER the TOW which makes the enemy tram resume motion. You’ve broken it for some reason, I’ll look into why that’s happening.
Uh…that’s extremely odd. No idea why it would do that. I’ll check it out.
As the guy said on the video, it’s Barney shooting it from the left. I’ll make it so that he disappears once he goes off the screen.
Thanks for the feedback man. It’s been useful, a large number of weird bugs here which I’ll have to investigate further.
I enjoyed the difficulty too, but bear in mind not everyone loves a very difficult challenge. I’ll probably ease it back on the throttle ever so slightly, but not a great deal. Don’t worry, I’m nto planning on making it really easy.
Blame the Vort’s crappy AI. I’ll see what I can do. I was already considering removing them as well.
Yeah, it’s the ropes from the rappelling. They actually used to do that all the time until I tweaked some I/O to kill the ropes as soon as the rappelling is done. It still happens sometimes. NO IDEA why it happens, but I definitely need to fix it before final.
Heh, musta left that in from when there were pipes there. Consider them gone.
Yep, will do.
Use E!
I’ll add a set of double doors from behind him, it’s the simplest solution. Changing the boom gate for security doors isn’t such a good idea, you literally just 30 seconds ago cleared another security door, don’t want to repeat themes TOO much.
E, E, E!!!
Thanks for the feedback Jessie, insightful and well delivered as always.
Again, big thanks to everyone who’s helped test B1. I’m grabbing some lunch right now, and then I’ll be starting work on B2! Already got a pretty clear picture on where I want to take that map, and how I’m going to do it.
Just thought I should also mention this, seeing as no one else has. The tunnel door just after the parallel trams isn’t high enough for you to duck under and drags you off your tram.
It’s meant to be like that, I did it on purpose. It’s to encourage the player to steal the enemy tram, or hint at them that it’s the better thing to do.
[COLOR=‘DarkOrange’]Feedback For OaR Uncut Alpha1-B1 Concluded 12:45 PM EST, April 5, 2013
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Progress update!
Haven’t got much work done on the past few days as I’ve been a bit busy IRL - however one thing I did do was construct a new composite of all the On a Rail maps to see how to fit B2 into the big picture seamlessly and properly. I started working on B2 inside this composite and quickly realized there simply wasn’t enough space to fit it, with the way I’d laid out B1. I’ve had to go back and revise B1’s layout towards the end a fair bit, but I’ve already finished that. It was a big job, but it’s out of the way.
What does this mean for B1? Not a great deal, functionally speaking. I had to mirror the entire top floor after the turntable elevator. B1’s final tunnel (the one with the electrical “puzzle”) on the alpha version moved back towards B/C, leaving B2 in the space between the opening tunnel on C, and the rest of B, a fairly awkward and restrictive space. I probably could have made it work there - but instead I’ve chosen to expand the available space. B1’s final tunnel now moves AWAY from B/C, leaving the room for B2 in a totally open, unoccupied space.
This has brought up 2 issues which I figured I’d mention here and see what people thought.
Slightly more out of the way from a gameplay perspective but from a realism perspective it actually makes a bit more sense. Seem alright to everyone? It sits perfectly fine with me, it might actually be a little better!
It also means this area is now a bit bare. I’ll probably add a garage door or something to this slightly bare wall:
Now that the path at the top goes the SAME way as your approach, I’m left with 2 options:
-Make the turntable turn 360 degrees as it raises, a superficial turn but might still make mechanical sense. Might look a bit weird though, as the turntable isn’t that high, so it might have to turn quite fast indeed!
-Simply make the lift raise up without any rotation. This will make it distinct from other Black Mesa elevators but might be less inconsistent and confusing.
Neither of these are particularly fantastic options but sadly I have to choose the lesser of two evils here. There are no alternatives. The gains in size for B2 are too major to miss. Which is the better option?
First one looks good to me. Does that have less explosive boxes than it did before? I have no problem at all with that lift simply raising straight up considering that you’re fighting the marines that are on a lift as well. If this makes it too easy to kill them maybe you could add some more cover for them. Turning 360 degrees and faster sounds like it would be too disorienting.
About the using E to pick up the batteries thing. I still think you should change them so you can pick them up normally. Consider that the reason so many people commented about it is because that way is abnormal to the way the rest of the batteries are in black mesa. If the testers are commenting that they didn’t think to use E that means the general public who play your maps in the future probably won’t think to do so either.
Repositioning Of The Cargo Elevator
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Seems you’ve moved it closer to where other cargo-related functions occur, so realism wise it makes sense. Gameplay wise, it’s not that overly distant from it’s previous location, so no biggie.
Tram Elevator
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For it to spin 360 degrees in such a short distance, makes it out to be a carnival ride. You don’t want players tossing their cookies :sick: . Having it rise straight up, without any rotation, is perfectly fine.
These changes are really insignificant, if it means that your vision for map B2 can be fully realized, with ample room for development towards its full potential.
Make it go 360 but why not just make the shaft taller to compensate that, would that be possible? but I wouldn’t care if it went straight up, its your map your allowed to make it unique.
TextFAMGUY1, have you found a solution to the spawning outside the map issue when moving back from map B to map A2? If you haven’t, I think the best way to solve the issue is to close this transit gate when entering B like this one when entering map B1 (or C in standard Black Mesa)
Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.
