To Many escape maps on ZM server.

[Baliame]

I like escape a lot more than cade maps, it's exactly what Zero said, most of the escape maps are rather good and fun, as for cade maps, there's a few that looks good and I like to play it, and the rest is either a bunch of block primitives (read: pretty low quality), or has one or maybe two spots where humans could ever possibly survive and it always comes down to the same result, or just plain boring. I say there should only be a cutdown on escape maps if shitty cade maps are removed and replaced with decent ones.

[THE HOLY SH**T!]

we've been playing escape maps alot, some are good, and some are bad.

If anything, just get rid of the maps that most people dont like. I remember playing escape bridge, spacestation, and atix as the main escape maps. Now i rarley play on spacestation and escape bridge, which i enjoy. Well, most of the escape maps we play on are the ones that began with Ze_. To play more cades would be cool.

[Vladninja]

I agree with... well everyone and just to add my .02 cents... Escape maps are no fun at all between 5 A.M. and 7 A.M. when no admins are on.... for some reason it seems like someone is always like "look no admins lets just block and screw everyone over." I enjoy escape maps every now and then but lately it seems like people have been over doing it.

On a side note it comes back to the age old debate... People bitch cause we always play the same maps... but we always play the same maps because most of the other maps are way unfair for either zombies or humans!

[Mallissin]

I think escape maps tend to win votes because the rounds are shorter. A barricade map can take forever to play out if a group of players setup a decent cade. So everyone dead has to wait or the zombies feel like they can't do anything, in either case everyone gets bored. Hell, even the players behind the cades might get bored.

While on an escape map, if you die you can always watch someone else trying to complete the map which tends to be far more fun than watching someone hide behind a cade.

Add to the fact that the escape maps tend to be more thought out, with more cool features like vehicles, destroyable obstacles, better landscape, etc.

I honestly prefer cade maps because I get far more kills. Humans rarely get kills on some escape maps, with the exception of maps like ATIX where all the humans have to hold positions together. Escape maps like Jurrasic are more fun though, since there's some competition.

We also tend to overplay newer maps because not everyone has figured out the best spots so we're all exploring and competing. Where as maps like Lila panic, we all know there are really only two or three spots you can survive, so we all rush to them.

I'm wondering, is there a way to make modular maps that reconfigure themselves? Kind of like Diablo levels, never looking the same way twice but still has the same general feel?

[Baliame]

That would be a bit difficult, you see you cannot just randomly generate world brushes. I suppose you could make a map so that there are a few different layouts (you can activate and deactivate func_brushes), with either most of the map static and there are a few corridors that can change into whole rooms, open up and close off certain rooms, maybe even close off whole wings, also you could have a few different spawnrooms (this is rather easy to manipulate), or even a few seperate map areas (but that's really like putting lilapanic, royhighway and roytheship into one map with one of them randomly played each round).

Obviously, these are just some alternative options. You can never really get a fully randomly generated map like in Diablo.

Here's an idea:
A substitute for a randomly generated map, this could work like a labirinth, of course, it's a work of patience, it might take something like a year to put a decent map together from elements like this. Just outside spawn is a corridor. Let's call a "unit" of the corridor's left side wall A, and a unit of the right side wall B. Basically, a few random As and Bs are chosen, and a corridor behind them opens up. Each corridor opening up like this has an A side and a B side as well. This could be repeated, say, 10 times, and it would make a which is different every time. Of course, this wouldn't work as really randomly generated as if you take the first turn left, then the first turn right, you should be in the same corridor every round.

[Mallissin]

What about something simpler, like having a slew of cade area's around the map but the core is a maze that has walls on timer? There's some sort of random number picked at the start of each round that the timed walls use to decide if they're open, when they'll open or close again.

One cade could be a tower, where you can look down on the maze to watch for zombies (shoot them off the ladder when they come). Other rooms are typical cade rooms of various configurations with a display showing the timing. So if a cade fails, people inside could always knock down the part of the cade away from the zombies and use the maze timing to escape the zombies (could even avoid a fast zombie if you get them blocked behind you). You could even have short passages like vents that people could hold up in or use to avoid certain sections of moving walls.

Anyway, mazes are pretty standard on escape maps to throw players for a loop but most are static. Something that's not so dependable could add some excitement or an advantage to the humans.

Take it to another level and maybe throw in pods like boat escape to hover over the maze and fire down or guns for those towers to fire down or takeout pods, and you'd have one epic battlefield.

[Steamer]

Sounds fun, Can you make it?

[Baliame]

I'm going to finish up the lights on my escape map, and then it should be done. After that, I'll get on this project.