**** This map designed for the TeamFortress v2.5 quakeC mod **** 7/1/97 ================================================================ Title : The Canal Zone Filename : canalzon.zip Author : David Sawyer (Ramirez) Email Address : sawyer@execpc.com Web Page : www.lockandload.com/urbanwarfare Description : TeamFortress v2.5 Quake Map Check out the TeamFortress homepage at: http://www.planetquake.com/teamfortress ================================================================ * Play Information * This map does not work properly without the TeamFortress v2.5 QuakeC patch, which can be downloaded from http://www.planetquake.com/teamfortress or from ftp.cdrom.com Single Player : No Cooperative : No Deathmatch : No TeamFortress : Yes Difficulty Settings : No New Sounds : No New Graphics : No New Music : No Demos Replaced : None * Construction * Editor(s) used : Worldcraft Known Bugs : 1 bug which shows up in QuakeWorld only. On occasion, when a command point is captured, the key model does not appear properly over the newly captured spot. Sometimes it shows up after about 5 seconds, sometimes longer, sometimes not at all. Fortunately, this _does not_ effect scoring, and future versions of Team Fortress might be able to correct this bug. There is nothing that can be done about it from my end. *8-( Build Time : Too damn long. *8-) 3-4 weeks of intensive work spread out over several months. Now that I have the hang of things, my next levels should go much faster. Compile time of roughly 2.5 hours on a P200 w/128 meg of RAM. (borrowed computer, heh) Thanks to - id software of course for Quake - all of the Team Fortress guys for a great patch - most especially Robin of TF for his tons of help with learning the TF entities and getting them working properly - Vortex and Clan Gothic Terror for helping me test this map on their QW server - Clan Phantasm for the idea for the intermission scene. Heh. - Regi for letting me use his office computers for compiling and testing. - Matt Armstrong for general brainstorming and various good ideas. *8-) - Apologies if I missed anyone. General overview: This is a two-team Team Fortress map using an entirely new scoring system that I call my Command Point System. Scoring is based on the idea of territorial control of a level, centered around a number of command points spread throughout the map. Control of a command point signifies general control of the surrounding area of the map. There are eight command points in the Canal Zone, and the scoring works like this: - Each command point can only be controlled by one team at a time (duh). - Once a team takes control of a command point, that team gets 1 point for every 30 seconds they remain in control. - To take control of a command point, someone must take one of the four command markers (they look like keys) from their own base, and take it to the command point they want to control. While carrying a command marker, the player runs at half speed and glows. The half speed feature is intended to make it very difficult for lone runners to just dash in and claim a command point by simply dodging the defense. - As soon as a command marker touches a command point, the command point is under control of whichever team just claimed it. An appropriately colored key appears above the command point to show who is in control. The command marker is taken from the carrying player and reappears back at base for further use. - In addition to getting points for owning a command point, most command points also have ammo packs and healing pads nearby which become accessible to the controlling team. Future versions of the Canal Zone (once v2.6 is released) should also include new respawn points which become accessible through control of a command point. - Control of all of a team's command points can be broken at once by setting a detpack in the control room of their base. Other nifty features: That funny looking thing on the wall of each base with blue, red, and white spots is a fairly general map of the level. Since there's no real detail, it's no good for navigation. It's there so that teams can see who is control of which command points without having to scout the whole level. As soon as a team captures a command point, the 30 second score timer is activated. 30 seconds after a command point is taken, the corresponding white dot (representing a command point) on the map changes color to show who owns it. I didn't originally intend the 30-second delay, but I don't think it really hurts things at all, and I've actually decided I kinda like it. There are two spots on this level where detpacks can be used to create an alternate path to a command point. Random notes: I know I'm missing some general messages that should be activated when you do things like pick up a command marker, but I discovered that there's a very annoying entity size limit in Quake levels, and I blew right past it the first time I tried to do a full compile with all the entities. As a result, I had to condense things a lot and take out things that weren't absolutely necessary. Fortunately, version 2.6 of Team Fortress should include new abbreviations for entities that I can use, and that'll give me a little more space to work with, so hopefully I'll be able to flesh things out a little. The file size of this level is a bit too large to run with the standard 8mb ram limit. You'll either need to use the -winmem command or just use winquake. QuakeWorld users shouldn't have a problem since I believe it already requires 16mb of ram.