Map size

[Rends]

This is a discussion about map size in upcoming usermade maps.

There are some people claiming that the stock maps are too small.

Well i think this might be true for a few maps esp. if you want to fly ships but overall i think that new maps shouldn´t be too big.

If you ever played bf42 or better GC you know how empty such a big map could be. You feel simply alone in the terrain. There is no Battle feeling wich i like in SWBF :-)

So if you plan to create new maps (once it is possible) please make them not too big if you plan it for groundwars.

As example:

For me these maps are ok in size:

Mos Eisley,Bespin city, Hoth, Naboo Theed, JavinIV Temple, Both Rhen Var and Geonosis.

This maps could be bigger:

Tatooine desert for vehicles, Bespin platform for ships, Naboo for vehicles, Javin Arena,both Kasshyyk maps and Kamino.

 

Rends

[Gerardo]

I agree

[Servant]

This thread will become popular once people start making new maps. Maybe someone expirianced should set up a list of rules for making maps.

 

Personaly, I beleive that maps should be a bit bigger (not to much). This is possible, with removing flying resctictions and moving spawn points bit further appart (this is for exsiting maps).

[Tyler_Durden]

To me a lot of the map sizes are too small. Take hoth for example, the battle of hoth was about 3 times as big as it is in the game plus there were at least 3 at-ats in the movie as opposed to two. On top of that the general area of the battle is too compressed for a really effective epic map as it should be.

 

In looking at maps for 1942 and vietnam, some of the maps are huge, some too huge for their own good. However i believe a map can be huge but whether it's empty or not depends on what is where and how ou place certain things. You wouldn't put a lot of control poins together as you would in the kashyyk map, what's the point? you have to spread them out more so that players can take advantage of the full range of the map which doesn't happen in the kashyyk map.

 

I guess it comes down to what your preferences are but i think more editors, myself included, are gravitating towards bigger more robust maps.

[psych0fred]

Don't forget the bigger the map the more memory needs to be allocated just for the terrain, aside from complex objects, lighting and shadow effects, and models you'll want to add to this really huge world.

[arachon]

as TK-8252 isn't here i take his role in this reply

its spelled yavin

[Tyler_Durden]

Originally posted by psych0fred

Don't forget the bigger the map the more memory needs to be allocated just for the terrain, aside from complex objects, lighting and shadow effects, and models you'll want to add to this really huge world.

 

That's pretty much the only thing that concerns me. I wonder how large and intricate you can make a map without sacrificing things like performance and connectivity. Hopefully the game will at least let us be able to make maps similar to BF 1942 and vietnam with at least 50 players without having to own a super computer to play.

[kingguru]

Something between BF1942 and SWBF would be a nice fair size I think. There were a few maps that I found I could just sit or get in a vehicle on bf42 and the game would play on with out me.

 

I agree that in general maps should not get to the boring size but I mean there are crucial things missing from the current scenes in swbf, sometimes I walk just a little behind something in Bespin 2 map and get a warning turn back , that just retarded.

 

In Tatooine for instance an area where players can go out and race vehicles and use lukes hover car to get around would be easy considering that 40% more of the map is drawn in but its just empty desert and non usable with out of bounds calls.

 

Poly count will be higher with anything we mod (more vehics & model swapping) but in cases of testing 50 Sarlac pits on the highest resolution and all the AI running amuck I noticed not a single blip of speed change which was amazing consider all the ai pit usage -I removed all 50 idle functions so they constantly ate - ... (sarlacs ate well that day).

[Cpt. Bannon]

yeah,the BF graphics engine is pretty amazing to me...i dont meet the minimum requirements, and yet i can play it smoothly, even with the view distance way up...

[Tyler_Durden]

My thinking is not to make maps bigger just for the sake of going bigger but bigger in order to spread out control points and to have some good areas for snipers as i think they aren't being used effectively in the game as well as they should be. Another reason is for the epic scale i want to see these battles take place in. I truly think we haven't seen what this engine is totally capable of yet.

[Barcrest]

Well personally i think hoth needs to be bigger. Hopefully we could ramp the re-enforcment count up and have 4 AT-AT walkers and a few more AT-ST's If any of you have played Star Wars Arcade (The latest one in the arcade from a couple of years back) i think the hoth battle should be simular in size to that. We also need some probe droids

 

If the amount of troops in the battle is also increased the map should not feel empty and you will get a nice waiting time from the game stating and the first shots being fired much like what we see in the film. If control points are added further out in the map once you have got this far you will be ble to spawn here to keep the battle flowing. Not forgetting the AT-AT walkers can keep spawning as they move closer to the rebels.

 

Personally HOTH is my favourite map and a larger version with a little more going on would make my day. I have just read about the dev with the LUA stuff and it looke like we might not be too far away from seeing a map like i just described.

 

Well done to all involved.

[Tyler_Durden]

I agree about Hoth. I would make it a lot more expansive and about 3-5 times bigger than it is. Also I would make it so that the base is head on with the imperial assault as opposed to a curve. Then i would add a south hangar as well like in the movie. I would also up the ante on the speeders. At least 2 to an at-at. And also like the movie, there would be at least 4 walkers on at a time.

 

I dont know if i would make this map though as it adheres to strict guidelines in order to make it like the movies. I would rather make all new maps that don't have to adhere to set rules, except that it's star-warsy.