TITLE                   : Miiimiiic Deux
FILENAME                : cpm30.zip
AUTHOR                  : Kerry 'Centaura' Mayall from Whangarei, New Zealand - um, Hello World :)
DATE                    : June 2008
TYPE                    : CPMA Tourney and FFA
EMAIL ADDRESS           : kerry.mayall@yahoo.com

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* LEVEL DESCRIPTION *
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Not long after I made CPM5, I put together a map called Miiimiiic, in which I wanted to recreate the pace of Quake1 DM4. What I ended up with was a map that was indeed very fast and fun for pickup play, but unfortunately tended to be a bit of rape map in 1on1 and therefore, was relegated to FFA status and never made the cut as a CPM map. I recall at the time Hoony and Jude saying that if another room or two was added then it would likely that the map would make the CPM grade. I think it was a combination of reluctance to alter the fast paced nature of the level, and also the fact that, having made maps since 1994 (with DEU 5.0 for DOOM), I had basically had enough of level editing. I did start to modify Miiimiiic, but didn't see it through to completion. What followed was 7 years of not making a single map for any sort of 3D game. I did start to learn the Sandbox editor for Far Cry, but my enthusiasm for it was shortlived, and I never had any desire to master UnrealED. So basically over the years I limited myself to making several maps for Warcraft 3 - which you can make in a few hours :)

This period coincided with not having any of the Quake games on my computer since about 2003. Earlier this year however, I had my good friend PhaNToM (one of the lead coders for CPMA) around for a lan. I copied both Quake 1 and Quake 3 off him and found that I still thirsted for this fast paced style of play. What followed was a frantic period of re-downloading all the old classic Quake demos (anyone remember PGL season 1??) and a few Q3 CPM demos.  Inevitably I started looking at some of my old maps and found myself thinking how much I could improve on them. I think the key aspect I have learnt over the years is that a map must have good flow above all else. Crap architecture, plain textures, bad weapon placement, can all be overlooked if the map is an absolute dream to move around. A player needs to absolutely blitz his way around a level. Areas that are tedious to navigate or where players would get 'stuck' on various bits of architecture are to be avoided at all costs, I reckon (do you know what I mean? You know how on some areas of maps you go through rooms that are either dull or awkward to navigate?). I also believe in judicious use of teleporters and would rarely even contemplate putting in 2 way teleports, unless they were between 2 non-strategic areas. A lot of map makers over the years have held the belief that you need teleports all over the place to increase level access and speed. What tends to happen is that you basically make your 1on1 map good for FFA and not much else. Some levels are an exception (like Aerowalk), but the best maps over the years tend to be about territorial dominance and not about being able teleport behind your opponent continuously from dusk till dawn. I guess this is all subjective, but I definetly thinking putting a two-way teleport between a rocket launcher and red armour,for example, is a bad idea (Qcon1 and some of the DAPAK maps from Quake 1 are indicative of this). On the other hand, the 2 way teleport on Quake 1 DM4 works well, because the 2 areas are of little tactical importance (both areas are 'vulnerable').

The other thing with level-flow is in regards to the common practise of putting all your entities (health, ammo etc) along the walls of rooms. I don't know why we mappers tend to do this (A lot of id's maps don't). The player has to come to a near stop (and gameflow suffers) in order to pick stuff up, because he has to detour off to the side of the room before proceeding on. I've experimented in this map with putting all the collectables in nice convenient piles (weapon,health,ammo) , and I believe it really helps. It certainly seems to make bot navigation a lot faster and more efficient, because they don't spend all their time zig-zagging all around a room trying to decide what to collect.

Having said all that, things may have changed a bit over the years. I've noticed on recent CPM demos, players just going nuts with little regard for health and armour. They'll charge in with 50 health and hope for at least one good hit before they cop it. It's likely that it is dependant on the level, but things do seem a little different (definelty more exciting from a spectator POV).

Anyway having re-discovered my mojo, I found myself thinking back to Miiimiiic and really feeling that I never developed the level to its potential. I realised now, that as long as I kept level-flow in my mind, then I could add rooms without slowing the pace of the map down. Spending a bit of time learning how to re-use GTKRadiant, we have come up with a level that really fulfills the potential of the map. I mean, I really like playing this map, and it can actually be difficult for mappers to enjoy their own maps because right in the middle of an 31337 rocket jump/rail combo they see a texture that is out of alignment, or something silly like that.

So, as mentioned earlier, what I have tried to create here is a Quake 1 DM4 paced map (like, who doesn't), but with less player downtime. In other words, I wanted players to get weapons easily and to be able to re-enter the fray, fully tanked with weapons, within seconds of dying. So what I have done is to put 2 rl's, 2 rails and 2 LG's in the map, with 1 of each weapon type on either 'side' of the map, all within close proximity of each other. This is something I have not seen too often in a 1on1 map (if at all), and combined with my health and ammo placement strategy, I honestly believe it all works. I was initially not going to include either the shotgun or the grenade launcher, in order to develop a real slugfest map, but changed my mind on that as players would miss the tactical necessity of the grenade launcher and the cool backup weapon that is the shotgun.

But, enough with the typing, and more gibberlets. Here is 'Miiimiiic Deux', and I hope you enjoy it.

Centaura, June 2008.


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* CONSTRUCTION *
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MAP BASE                : Re-make of 'Miiimiiic', which was made in 2000. Rebuilt from scratch.				
PREFABS USED            : None
EDITOR(S) USED          : GTK Radiant 1.5.0
COMPILER USED    	: Q3MAP2
KNOWN BUGS              : Bots. Heh, actually they aren't too bad - just prone to the odd fog-of-death mosh dive.
DEATHMATCH		: 6 spawn points. Good for 1on1, 2on2 and FFA. Absolutely rubbish for 16 vs 16 :)
Compile Settings	: BSP -meta
			: VIS
			: LIGHT -fast -bounce 8 -samples 2 -filter
			: BSPC -forcesidesvisible -bsp2aas

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* CREDITS *
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PhaNToM - for being a friend, LAN buddy, Formula One nut.
Hoony - for getting the whole CPM experience of the ground. Hi Hoony :)
Errrr - Lots of people who I used to LAN with but can't really remember them anymore (Mirage, Ajax etc). Where are you dudes???

And finally, I cannot finish this .txt file without thanking those members of the Q3 community who liked my first map, CPM5. It is a real thrill watching top calibre players on a map of one's own design. In particular, lots of firm handshakes with the Polish CPM community. J00 h4rdc0r3 guys are truly to be ph33r3d.

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* COPYRIGHT / PERMISSIONS *
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You can do whatever you want with this map. In fact I intend to include the .map file with the .pk3 in case anyone wants to modify it. The (tm) that I always put in my map titles is really tongue-in-cheek. The reality being that nobody really 'owns' the map they make. If it is illegal to sell it, then you don't own it, ok? :)

*burp*

Oh yeah, I played Doom3 deathmatch for the first time about a month ago, and I just wanna go on record as saying that it is the worst deathmatching game of all time. True story. Come back Romero, all is forgiven child (we'll blame someone else for Daikatana).

Quake III Arena (C) 1999 id Software. All rights reserved.
