[Abandoned] Escape [19/5] Pages 1/9

[isaiah40]

I believe this can be moved on up!!

[koontz1973]

Thanks isaiah.

GP mods. Here is my thinking for this one so please bear with me when you get round and have a look at it.

Conditional borders. Have I got this right and can there be more than one key for each of the doors? Additionally, can a key open more than one door?

Decays, this seems to fit the overall scheme of things as any virus outbreak would attack you slowly and not be confined to any particular area. Right now, it is -1 for all rooms and -2 for all corridors. Does my wording as it stands now work?

Territory bonus. +1 for every 2 with a minimum of 5. Very high I know but with the huge reductions because of the decays, even 1v1 games, no one will recover what they lose in the first rounds and may never recover. This, I hope will get players think of there initial deployment. As all starting territs will be programmed in, I will do it as a 3 so manual games do not get massive amounts of troops for one area.

Bonuses. Lots and lots. As there are so many bonuses to be had and they grow, these need to be kept very low. +1 or +2 with the odd one being over that.

[koontz1973]

Legend work only.

Click image to enlarge.

[thehippo8]

This makes me smile every time I look at it! Nice work and congrats on the stamp.

Get their first (story at the top) ... should be get there first.

Admin legend - secretaries has a capitalised first letter but managers does not ... and hallways is also not capitalised (box upper right to the admin box).

Have a think about the legend for the key cards ... maybe simplify the wording?

Molotov cocktail ... Can bombard through doors. Key card is required. ... maybe one sentence ... Can bombard through doors with correct key card. ... ?

On the map .. . Test subjects holding cell ... Maybe either ... Test subject holding cell ... or ... Test subject's holding cell ... or ... Test subjects' holding cell ... depending on whether it is a holding cell where you hold test subjects or a holding cell that belongs to a single test subject or one that belongs to lots of them. Easiest is just drop the "s" on subjects!

Administrators office ... either Administrator's office or Administrators' Office ... depending on whether its there for one or many.

Hope that helps!

[koontz1973]

This makes me smile every time I look at it! Nice work and congrats on the stamp.

Get their first (story at the top) ... should be get there first.

Admin legend - secretaries has a capitalised first letter but managers does not ... and hallways is also not capitalised (box upper right to the admin box).

Have a think about the legend for the key cards ... maybe simplify the wording?

Molotov cocktail ... Can bombard through doors. Key card is required. ... maybe one sentence ... Can bombard through doors with correct key card. ... ?

On the map .. . Test subjects holding cell ... Maybe either ... Test subject holding cell ... or ... Test subject's holding cell ... or ... Test subjects' holding cell ... depending on whether it is a holding cell where you hold test subjects or a holding cell that belongs to a single test subject or one that belongs to lots of them. Easiest is just drop the "s" on subjects!

Administrators office ... either Administrator's office or Administrators' Office ... depending on whether its there for one or many.

Hope that helps!

All fixed and done. Apart from the key card wording. It may be slightly long but it has to be very clear. Till conditional borders become more common and a term is worked out for it like decay and killer, it needs to be. But if anyone comes up with something better, on it will go.

Moved antodote from lab 2 to closet 1 so it does not give an easy bonus for those doors for the win. Also, it will give incentive to players to go through the closets.
Added the guns names to the legend. Not needed but a fun thing to have. Might not be able to fit it on the small map though.

Click image to enlarge.

[tkr4lf]

So, anything new with this, Koontz?

The legend looks great now. It's all organized nicely. Putting everything on the right into boxes worked well. The outer glow you added to the red text helped a lot on the readability issue.

I honestly don't see much else you can do as far as graphics go. I think it looks great.

[koontz1973]

At the moment there is nothing new. I think the legend looks OK also and I think the map itself has enough on it. Placement of icons though needs to be double checked then I can go ahead and set about making sure things work OK. Right now, the green doors do not work because of the colour. My laptop shows them up as hard to see whilst on my PC, they look fine. Will get that sorted soon but I think this is going to be in game play for quite a while so the bosses can make sure it should work as it should.

[thehippo8]

lounge 3 has a lower case L. And if that's all I can criticise then woohoo!

I think this map is epic, can't wait to play it. You can count me in any Beta testing tourney's you wanna set up!

[tkr4lf]

Hmm, the green doors look fine on my laptop. I guess it's different for everybody, though.

What about CB considerations? Do the red/blue/green doors blend too much? I guess the main area that would be a problem if so would be Lab 2 to Test Area 1.


One other thing to consider is the knives. Why the autodeploy for them? I mean, it doesn't seem like a knife would be all that helpful against zombies, so why the extremely useful autodeploy? I guess gameplay wise, it doesn't really matter that it's a knife and not, say, a flamethrower or something else, but thematically, it seems a little strange. An autodeploy is a good idea, I think. Just perhaps not on a knife. Maybe something else? Just some food for thought.

[koontz1973]

Cb tests on the doors are fine.

About the knives, with the decay, and the auto deploy, they just cancel themselves out apart from the one in the hallway which decays at -2 so with the knife -1. Sort of giving a sense of security whilst not in actuality.

Not sure if you have played the Resident Evil games (and if you haven't guessed, this map is based around them), but knives are the only weapon given in each game at the start. Flame throwers seem to much like molotovs but if you want a different one, then have a think on what and let me know.

Will get that "l" changed today with the doors.

[tkr4lf]

Nah, the knives are fine. I was just curious about it. Flamethrowers was just something I was using as an example.

And yeah, I played a couple of the Resident Evil games. Fun stuff. I bet this map will be more fun though. Is that sad that a risk map is more fun to me than a video game? I'm getting old...

[koontz1973]

That is the truth. Last one I played I put down. Too fast now for me but enjoyed them since the first on the PS1.

EDIT:
Changed the L in lounge.
Colour for green doors works better on my laptop now.

Click image to enlarge.

As for the knives, see if any of these grab you instead.

Fire axe
crowbar
wood plank

All would work just as well.

[thehippo8]

While we are on colours of doors ... I find the dark colour hard to see and strange. Why aren't those doors yellow? I know it doesn't take a card carrying Mensa member to work out that the yellow card opens the dark coloured doors ... just curious.

[koontz1973]

Good point hippo, the dark doors where just that, doors that did not need a key card at all to get through. Removed them and replaced with normal territ lines to stop that confusion with players. Now, if you want these doors back at anywhere, let me know and what colour they should be.

Click image to enlarge.

[tkr4lf]

I'm okay with the regular doors being their own color or having them the same as the white terit lines. Either way seems to work just fine.

As for knives and replacing them...the knives work fine. I guess if you do really want to change them to fit more thematically, then fire axes would work well. It makes a little more sense for a lab to have them about as well. But really, that realistic weapons bit is pretty much out the door when an RPG is laying about.

[koontz1973]

You have to have an RPG in a government lab. Official documents left over from the Nixon administration say these are the preferred weapons for mad scientist and must be installed in all Labs where the head scientist has a loony scale close to Daffy Duck.

[tkr4lf]

You have to have an RPG in a government lab. Official documents left over from the Nixon administration say these are the preferred weapons for mad scientist and must be installed in all Labs where the head scientist has a loony scale close to Daffy Duck.

Makes sense to me.

Besides, can you think of a more fun way to kill zombies?

[koontz1973]

If I could, I would add it. Nothing like the smell of guts flying through the air.

[nolefan5311]

The legend needs a lot of work, but you know that. "Hold the Administration Office" needs to be changed to "Hold the Adminstrator's Office". And the apostrophe needs to be added to all instances in the legend and map. These are things that can be fixed in graphics, but you might think about getting them fixed now.

I think you need to do something to make the door colors more distinguishable. Perhaps have the outlines of the rooms the color, or make the backgrounds have the tint needed or something. But this could be just be me and my colorblindness.

You have a knife (+1 auto) in Hallway 11, but that's also a -2 decay. You'll need to do something about that. In fact, this seems to be theme throughout the map. 5 Hallways are given +2 each, but each one is a -2 decay. I would probably remove these bonuses (the top 2 boxes) since you already have an unusually high tert count bonus. I also don't like that normal rooms decay by 1; seems like an unnecessary amount of work for a playet to keep up with. I like the hallway decay though, but I do think you should trim the amount of total hallways. Hallway 20 for instance provides access to 8 rooms where Hallways 16-19 only provide access to 1 room each, etc.

The antidotes should probably be made more distinguishable. And if the point of this map is to escape this virus, I think the antidote should have a more central role in the GP, don't you think? Maybe make holding an antidote a conditional border to getting to the Helipad. Additionally, the molotov cocktails seem a little out of place and I don't think they add anything to the GP. Of course, this is zombie related, and there is no antidote after you've been bitten, so perhaps they can be removed altogether.

The Atriums take up a large portion of the central part of the map but have little relevancy in the gameplay of the map. The blue card can be had by Sec 1 and Admin 6, and there is only a beretta in the Atrium 1. Is there a chance you can get rid of Hallway 9 & 10 and perhaps funnel the winning condition through the Atrium? And maybe just trim it down to only 1 region instead of 3 of them.

What are your thoughts?

[koontz1973]

The legend needs a lot of work, but you know that. "Hold the Administration Office" needs to be changed to "Hold the Adminstrator's Office". And the apostrophe needs to be added to all instances in the legend and map. These are things that can be fixed in graphics, but you might think about getting them fixed now.

Will get changed.

I think you need to do something to make the door colors more distinguishable. Perhaps have the outlines of the rooms the color, or make the backgrounds have the tint needed or something. But this could be just be me and my colorblindness.

If you have trouble then it needs to be sorted. Will look into the glow but I find it hard to justify. But it will become clearer.

You have a knife (+1 auto) in Hallway 11, but that's also a -2 decay. You'll need to do something about that. In fact, this seems to be theme throughout the map. 5 Hallways are given +2 each, but each one is a -2 decay. I would probably remove these bonuses (the top 2 boxes) since you already have an unusually high tert count bonus. I also don't like that normal rooms decay by 1; seems like an unnecessary amount of work for a playet to keep up with. I like the hallway decay though, but I do think you should trim the amount of total hallways. Hallway 20 for instance provides access to 8 rooms where Hallways 16-19 only provide access to 1 room each, etc.

The idea behind the decays is that the virus is out and all players become sick depending on where they are. If we had the ability to decay to neutral, I would of added that, but as we do not, it becomes a matter of survival. The rooms because of doors that can be closed have a lower decay of one as there is a barrier but the hallways which are large get the higher decay. I wanted to give the players the ability to have to really think about the deploys. By round 3, all armies will be at one troop so even though all players have a large initial territ count, this becomes a lot smaller very fast. So by round 5, most players should of managed to carve out an area of dominance whilst the weakest fall. The idea behind the knife auto deploys is this. The virus is killing you whilst the weapon gives you the ability to fight the undead. I did not want another bonus so troops can be added anywhere. So the auto deploy cancels out the decay in the dorm rooms and reduces it to -1 in the hallway. Remember, a knife is a weapon, but not a very good one.

The antidotes should probably be made more distinguishable. And if the point of this map is to escape this virus, I think the antidote should have a more central role in the GP, don't you think? Maybe make holding an antidote a conditional border to getting to the Helipad. Additionally, the molotov cocktails seem a little out of place and I don't think they add anything to the GP. Of course, this is zombie related, and there is no antidote after you've been bitten, so perhaps they can be removed altogether.

Will make the antidotes easier to find. As for adding them to the winning condition or making them a border, not sure I like that as it would make a map that is already complicated more so. The cocktails may be an antidote but they are that in name only. Will think about the removal. Will remove the molotovs.

The Atriums take up a large portion of the central part of the map but have little relevancy in the gameplay of the map. The blue card can be had by Sec 1 and Admin 6, and there is only a beretta in the Atrium 1. Is there a chance you can get rid of Hallway 9 & 10 and perhaps funnel the winning condition through the Atrium? And maybe just trim it down to only 1 region instead of 3 of them.

Been thinking about this for a while now. I want it to be a short cut to the main lab so you do not need to go all the way around. Before changing it though, can I get you to look at the placement of cards and doors for me.

What are your thoughts?

What I need is to keep the basic layout but have the doors and keys moved around, add some, lose some so the three main areas of the map are kept separate (offices, dorms, labs). The atrium needs to be a short cut or changed to something different.

It does help to consider this as three maps (offices, dorms, labs), all with different bonuses and abilities. When all three are balanced, then they can be adjusted to become balanced with each other. The doors and keys then need to have the ability to get at weapons and other stuff whilst giving a flow around the map itself. This may require more keys and doors to be made (more colours).

[koontz1973]

I have lost my passion for this map for the moment. Will try to get it back up and running later in the year, but I cannot see me making an update any time soon for this one. Please put this on vacation for now.

[nolefan5311]

Moved

Per mapmakers request. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Cartography Assistants will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.

[tkr4lf]

I hope you regain your interest in this one, Koontz.

I really liked this idea, would love to see it hit Beta.

[koontz1973]

I will do, but I was coming up against a brick wall creatively. Will find my mojo soon for this map and will get it into play next year.

[tkr4lf]

I will do, but I was coming up against a brick wall creatively. Will find my mojo soon for this map and will get it into play next year.

Cool, looking forward to it.