Axion wrote:I like maps where everything you see makes sense
When you're mapping for a game like MoH, that's a good way of looking at it. I don't care much for buttons and more or less 'pointless' bells and whistles either. In singleplayer it's okay I guess, but in multiplayer I don't wanna go searching for a button on the second floor in the heat of battle with 30 secs left on the clock, I just wanna blast the obstacles out of the way and get on with it:)
As a whole the map feels solid and well thought out. I think the construction of the concrete walls and buildings fit the setting of this map. There are some nice sloped walls and concrete reinforcements, however some parts look a bit unfinished. There are passages that have ceiling lights and a couple of decorative trims and at the same time there are passages that are completely empty. Now that doesn't always have to be a bad thing in itself (in reality most corridors are pretty much empty), but when there's not even a single light(model) in a rather long corridor, nothing sticks out which makes those parts look kind of boring.
I also noticed that you've made most of the (indestructable?) crates into an entity. The FPS in the map is fine so it's not really a big deal, but I think it's always a good idea to save on entity count and use normal brushes instead.
But the thing that struck me the most was the use of unsourced lighting in some parts of the map. When making maps for a game with real-life settings it just doesn't make sense to see a light hitting the ceiling when there's no visible light source. It's obvious you're an experienced mapper so don't take this the wrong way. Like Bjarne said it's hard to be creative over a whole area but through the years I've learned to keep in mind that a map is as good as its least attractive area, because somehow people don't always see the nine beautiful things but they do see the one thing that doesn't look right.
As I walked through the map I noticed lots of nice touches, like that boarded hole in the wall, the pipelines and power reactors, the operational big gate door, the detailed catwalks and the spinning airfan to name a few. Construction-wise this map is fine.
As for the layout it's hard to say how it will play without actually playing it with others. At first glance I thought there was only one entrance to the powerbox-objective but after some time I noticed the ventilation hole in the ceiling. Always strange how one can totally overlook such things at first sight.
Again there were many things I liked about this map but IMO the manual lighting (as in pointlights) through out the map leaves something to be desired. For instance a couple of mounted cagelights above the doors in the courtyard and some more hanging lightbulbs can really make a difference. I don't like rating a map, but I think this one would still get a good score in spite of the few things I mentioned.
sorry for being negative about your map
