JANUARY 2006

JANUARY 31st 2006
SOF2 Maps Screenshots

ok all the map choices are finally done....... Now I just need to get my butt in gear and bust out some crazy Visio flow charts. I plan on doing a very bacis (pointing out spawn points and objectives) flow chart and a very detailed flow chart of ever room. So keep your eyes peeled and look out for the flow charts coming soon.

MP_JOR1

MP_FINCA

MP_SHOP2

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JANUARY 22nd, 2006
COD MAPS
SO I have two of the three maps for Call of Duty. And man was it a pain in the butt to piece them together. Some places on the maps aren't 100% accurate but it's enough for me to do what needs to get done.

MP_CARENTAN

MP_HARBOR

MP_RAILYARD

Finally got railyard done...although it's really ugly but it will serve its purpose.

there is a whole middle section I am missing but it would just be of the roof top.

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January 21, 2006
Counter-Strike:Source maps
I got lucky and CS:S has Overhead maps in spectator mode

DOD does have overhead maps but they don't make much sense so I need to maybe stitch some picture together

COD doesn't have any and I can't get cheats to work so i hit the top of the world really quick so I will really need to stich those together

SOF2 is still MIA. I ordered a copy through Amazon but it might not get here until next month. LAME!

Anyway here are the CS:S Choice Finals

DE_DUST

CS_ITALY



DE_PRODIGY

For DOD My final Choices are

DOD_AZNIO

DOD_AVALANCHE

DOD_DONNER



**Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that Counter-Strike and Day Of Defeat are © of their owners (I'm pretty sure that would be Valve)

I still need to piece together the COD maps unless I can find console commands online.
It shouldn't be too hard since they did use the Quake 3 engine, so chances are they didn't change much

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January 19, 2006
Minerva Mod for Half-Life 2
I was reading an article in Computer Gaming Monthly that featured the Minerva mod for HL2. In the article the creator mentioned something that I found intriguing. He said that for his level design he tries to make setting as close to real architecture as possible then builds the game play around it. I like this approach because then the areas around the player begin to make sense. Pretty much every Multi Player map I have ever played had no real rhyme or reason as to why those players are there and why they are doing what they are doing. This is very abundant in Counter-Strike: Source. In the level de_dust the terrorists (Ts) have three objectives to win a round:
1. Kill all Counter-Terrorist (CTs)
2. Use a bomb that one player is given randomly to blow up Bombsite A (which is just a bunch of stacked containers that seem to have nothing but grains in them
3. Blow up Bombsite B which is nothing more than the CTs spawn area that has nothing much junk and boxes in them.

Generally the round ends with one team killing the other with little thought to the actual objective. And planting the bomb seems to only be a trap to lure campers out of their spots and pick them off as they try to defuse the bomb.

Other Games are a little better at hiding the "death tunnel" feel such as Day of Defeat: Source's dod_aizno where the Allies spawn on a beach that have transports in the water and the Axis spawn in fortified courtyard. The water although keeping players contained still make it seem as though the map is a little more open. The goal in DOD is more apparent because no team can win just by killing the other team, and a players rank is based on how many flag captures they have and not how many people they kill.

It makes me wonder if CS:S would be even half as popular if the players scores where based on hostage saves or successful bombing instead of who can spray and pray the most.

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January 16, 2006
Map list
Well I'm still thinking about what maps to pick for this project but this is what I got so far:

From CS:S
de_dust
de_prodigy
cs_italy

From DOD:S
dod_flash
dod_ avalanche
dod_argentan

From COD (still have to decide which map demonstrates my theory better)
mp_carentan
mp_railyard
mp_pavlov
mp_depot

I still need to get my hands on a copy of SOF2

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January 15, 2006
Schedule for Midterm (Studio 1)

Here is what I hope to accomplish up until the '06 Winter Midterm

• Tuesday, January 17 (Class 4) - Final decision on the maps that will be used for research.
• Thursday, January 19 (Class 5) - Completed Over-head maps for some of the maps being used.
• Tuesday, January 24 (Class 6) - Over-head maps totally complete, reverse engineer all maps and comparisons of the results.
• Thursday, January 26 (Class 7) - Send Questions to the original map makers that I can find.
• Tuesday, January 31 (Class 8) - Start Process for designing base level to demonstrate findings.
• Thursday, February 2 (Class 9) - Revisions
• Tuesday, February 7 (Class 10) - Revisions
• Thursday, February 2 (Class 11) - Base Level Design Complete

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January 12, 2006
Plan of Attack
After talking things over with Professor Leong, I think I have a pretty good plan of attack for looking into the way the levels were designed. It seems pretty obvious now but a great way to find similarities will be to backward engineer the levels to their most basic form: The bubble diagram.

The bubble diagram should indicate if there are any similar features in the levels I have chosen. From this process I hope to boil the levels down to that addictive "magic" that makes people come back for more every time they play.

As for the number of maps I will choose, I still haven't decided. I want to pull maps from at least 3 different games. Games that are modifications from the same game will not be considered as a different game, even though the game play may be different. While I want to stick to games I know inside and out, it might be nice to throw a game I'm not too familiar with to see if my theory lives up to the test.
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January 12, 2006

An example of a Map with Choke points
One of the maps that I know need to be talked about is Counter-Strike: Source's (CS:S) De_Dust. This one particular map has been around since the first Counter-Strike (CS) Beta about 7 years ago. Unfortunately I can only find a really bad overhead view that doesn't really demonstrate what I would like to talk about. It come from the Counter-Strike 2d website which has a good amount of CS maps that are drawn out but it doesn't look very pretty. I think ill have to get into the game or the editor and take a top down picture that makes more sense. I will also be adding screenshots of the areas I will highlight later.

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January 10, 2006
Solidifying an Idea
Ok. So I have a great idea for my thesis. now I just need to go getting my ideas formulated so that I can start to get my project and thesis together.

After a good talk with professor Cookson, I'm pretty sure I want to attempted to take a detailed look into level design magic. Not the process of making a level...that's been done to death. but to pick apart at what makes a level (Cookson would kill me if he heard me use this term) "Fun". I want to look at what makes and breaks a level. But more specifically in the world of online games that involve two teams.

After countless hours of playing Call Of Duty, Counter-Strike, Day Of Defeat, Red Orchestra (before it was cool yo), F.E.A.R., and Soldier of Fortune 2, I still wonder what makes me go back for more on the same maps over and over again day in and day out. Some games I have played for over 5 years. I know the levels better than I know the streets of my hometown. And there is one thing that I noticed in most of the very popular levels, these games create intense conflict by squeezing the levels down to a bottleneck. These bottleneck areas basically turn into a meat grinder and any one foolish enough to run through there blindly will most likely get fragged.

I will go into better detail when I can get some examples of what I mean. until then, this is enough

**made some edits to the post due to me rushing to get my thoughts on the site, Hopefully it makes more sense now. -Notto **