Sandbox Ascendency

[ShotRangE]

Wow this map looks awesome! I haven't played on it or anything but I will download your map. Once i've done a forge-through of your map I will simply edit this reply and give you some feedback.. Wow, just wow..

[insomnia93]

nice job sir. way to make a crazy vine idea into a playable map :) you should probably finish your other maps as well.....please?

[thesilencebroken]

I actually qued this up for download, which is rare for me now adays. Ill be back when Ive actually played a game on it for a real review, but i have to say good lord, what a boring weapon set.

[Pegasi Delta]

Played a couple of games on this earlier, 3v3 slayer and 1 flag, and I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with this map.

Stuff I liked:

Overall it just flowed well as a piece, it felt thoughtfully designed when playing. From the overall balance of structures and area spacing, to main sight and passage divisions between key areas, and even down to the smaller things like proportions in smaller areas, and little touches like the stairwell in D-base which just played perfectly in its own little way.

The organic feel of the geometry transposed well in to gameplay, and making a map this pretty that plays well and warrants inclusion of the aesthetic as part of the greater whole is impressive. The stone walkways played nicely and just felt very smoothly incorporated in to the map, they felt like an integral part of it as opposed to a tagged on aesthetic centrepiece.

I actually really liked the weapon set, though in truth that's because it played in a very similar way to MLG (save Roche and his damned needler...) which is really where I'm happiest, and silence's comment about a boring weapon set are well founded in the wider competitive bracket in which this map falls. Some carefully chosen and placed duals could well spice up the closer quarters combat, especially in D base and even around the bottom mid areas between the stone tendril things. That said, if you were going for a more range, BR focused weapon set then you did it well.

Stuff I didn't like:

Whilst the stone tendrils integrated nicely in to D base as routes, and the high points weren't too overpowering, the spots high up on the geometry of D base itself that could be reached were overly dominant in my experience. Coming in to the flag area as an attacker, especially if coming in along sniper side, I felt watched from above and unable to make a tactical push or fight back. It didn't really seem like these were intentional hold points, but the restrictions placed on a player high up on the tendrils in terms of walking around the top of D-base are too weak imo. Extending the geometry of the building itself upward should hopefully remove access to these high spots. I really felt that this was the starkest knock against the map when I played it, though I did still enjoy the games as testament to the rest of the map.

Spawning. I didn't really feel this was specifically weak overall, and it didn't show the lack of thought that generally goes in to a weak spawn system. It just didn't quite feel as developed as the layout, and as a result didn't quite utilise it as much as possible. In the slayer game, I found myself spawning multiple times in a row at flag, just towards bubble shield side, when the main fighting was going on just around the corner on sniper side of the flag area. I really felt that a more distant spawn was in order there. In general, it was the spawns along the two sides of the map which meet at the flag which didn't feel defined enough, and I think that extending spawning out of D base towards bubble and camo, but with a much more rigid side to side definition between the two, could improve defender respawns overall.

But overall, a very well thought out and attractive design, executed nicely. The most pressing issue for me is sorting out the geometry exploits around the top so as to focus gameplay on what you've actually built, which is very nice. Tweak the spawning so it fully gels with the layout and you've got yourself a very unique and refined map, one which I'd keep on my HD for a good long while.

[centurionomegai]

Beautiful seamless forging. I ran through on forge and got myself stuck between one of the 'vines' and the central structure in the middle, It's easily repeatable by sliding down the small gap there. That is the only thing I can find wrong with it. I look forward to see how this plays. Too bad it's budget glitched, otherwise I would have suggested an Atlas submission.

[MickRaider]

I got a chance to play on this last night, and I must say the pictures don't begin to do this map justice.

The layout was a little confusing but the forging was absolutely perfect. The areas you created were amazing and the overall feel of the map was exceptional. There were times during gameplay where I had to stop and look at awe at parts of the map.

The best way to describe this map is "beautiful".

Great work, take pegasi's advice on the spawns and this map will be exceptional.

[Ghostly Zealot]

Looks amazing and sounds like it will play well too. I love how you actually integrated the vines into gameplay. This will probably stay on my hard drive for a while, good work!

[Rorak Kuroda]

I managed to get a forge through on this, and I must say, it rocks my socks off.

After playing a few different games, I quickly found out that it plays a mean FFA. What a beautiful map, and I'll edit this post when I have any more input to add.