(01)Databank

[Ktan]

Just a little something I've been cooking up, and it's now at a stage where I'm open to showing it to others.

This is probably my first attempt at a 'serious' map, and, as such, I do have some personal concerns about it. I'm uncertain about how plain the terrain may be and equally in certain places, narrow corridors have made movement difficult.

However, on the flipside, I'm satisfied that the triggers are working fine. However, when playtesting, the game did lag a little for no discernible reason.

The briefing is also a little sparse atm, I may spruce that a bit later. I also need to work on the difficulty, which is where you guys will really come into your own.

It's a fairly basic map and, despite me doing so, I doubt I actually needed to use SCMDraft 2 to finish all the final effects. However, without further ado, I present Episode 1 of a 'Raynor's Raiders' campaign:

Databank.

Rumours were, Mengsk had started giving a damn about his men. Hell, that cold bastard had gone so far as to introduce medics into his arsenal after the whooping he met at the hands of his old lieutenant, Sarah Kerrigan. Of course, people like me and Raynor knew that slimy old good for nothing simply wanted to keep his Marines shooting just that little bit more. It wasn't a matter of humanity. It was one of effeciency.

So, anyway, one day, we caught a wiff of a ship, The Constellation, hauling its sorry ass around the remains of the planet Braxis. Raynor had been there before, in fact, he got off the planet just as the 'toss nuked that ball of ice. Anyway, rumours were abound that the slimy Dominion c***s on that ship were running around with the latest data stolen from the UED consoles. Davis said he reckoned that most of the data was scavenged from the old Korhalian bases, and that they were also searching Braxis for anything of note, on account of the UED having set their sweet little backsides on the surface of that frozen shit hole.

Anyway, whatever their reasons for being there, I knew as soon as I heard the word 'Medic' that we were boarding that ship. Holy hell, if only it had been that simple...

First Sergeant Maximilian 'Keystone' Johnas, on the operation to steal Dominion data from the DSV Constellation

[DarkMirror]

Looks good.

[TormentedGod]

Wait, What? Ktans maps.. wow im living in a rock.

[Durandal]

I like the teaser text. Has a good amount of grittiness without coming off corny. :) He says "Anyway" a lot, though. As for the map itself, you'll have to excuse me 'till later, and I'll give you my thoughts on it.

[Basan]

Seems helluva interesting. :) I'll download it and at worse scenario possible will take a peep at it during a night in the next fourthnight. *Wink, wink*

[Durandal]

Alright, I finally played it, and these are my thoughts (Don't be daunted by the long list of cons, they're not very serious):


Pro's:
+ I liked the dialog, especially the little murmuring of some of the men :D
+ The intro was also interesting, I liked the shooting noises, and then centering on the ghosts with two fresh pools of marine blood at their feet. Very cool. Sad that I had to lose them later :rolleyes:
+ Small details were nice. The terrain was reasonably decent, with un-enterable hallways to nowhere, computer terminals at the beacons, and notifications on the beacons.
+ The briefing was well written and informative, and thankfully stayed relevant so you didn't get lost on what was going on.
+ It's a solid campaign style map. There's not a lot more that I can say, given what kind of map it is.


Con's:
- The map revealer in that first ambush attack is never removed.
- You have other "Davis's" near the dropships :)
- Some objectives are unclear, like I freaked out when I first lost control of Davis. I didn't realize he'd become rescuable, and that I had to move a unit near him again to get him back. That and when Keystone got captured, I wasn't really positive on where to go or what to do. Or even when I opened the security doors to free my men near the end, I didn't realize i had to actually send Davis back to open them. Would be more convenient if they opened on their own.
- You should separate the things people say into different messages instead of fitting all of them into one, like when Davis is talking at the first terminal. There are also rarely some odd lulls between conversation, or sometimes they go too fast, like when Davis is talking about rescuing prisoners. (Heh, all the problems are centered around Davis)
- I often suffered cases where I was shot from another hallway by ghosts. Might want to change their patrol routes.
- I wouldn't call this a con so much as a suggestion; when keystone blows the security door, the effect might look nicer if you spawned an air unit(s) and quickly killed it above the door.
- Unfortunately it's not particularly challenging, unless you do something really stupid, like leave your medics halfway across the map during an ambush. By the end you have so many men you can basically just steamroll over any other threat.
- Who is this officer lady that I murdered? :P

[Ktan]

Officer lady was just made up.

Also, with the multiple 'Davis' that was just because I wasn't sure how else to represent unarmed delegates. I may remove or replace.

I'll try and sort any timing errors too, as well as fixing any errors where it's unclear what you have to do next. Ghosts are a problem too, I'll see what I can do about those.

Don't know when the next build will be up, but thanks a lot for the feedback, hope you enjoyed it :)

Also, those first map revealers don't seem to remove, even using the 'remove units' trigger. Any hints on how to do that? Feel free to open the map to check the trigger, if you feel the need (just make sure to tell me how to fix it too :P)

[Durandal]

I think the trick with map revealer's is that you had to remove them all at once. I don't usually use them much, though, so I wouldn't know. You're using the "Remove Unit" action, right?

[Dem0nS1ayer]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you have to do "Remove all Map Revealers for All Players." At least, that's how it's done in the official campaigns.