So far no map I've palyed feels really like a town. They have the buidlings and roads and rubble, but none really feel like a battle. There is no sense of a real place, atleast with the standard maps, theydont make me feel like I am there. Theres no long hard fought battle sense, and I believe that is because of the very symetrical layout of the maps. Could someone that cares make a map that has buildings that you can enter everywhere (and have second floors). Instead of worrying about an attack from the same direction ie the direction of the other teams spawn, you would have to worry about a rifleman picking you off from one of the many windows, and the next attack could come from any direction. When I played CoD the Carentan map had this feel, it didnt feel like a movie set with only X number of building you could enter, and it didnt feel like some choreographed battle

The trouble is that the map would have very poor gameplay as it would be very hard to find anyone.

Really? I never had that problem with the one in CoD, if you actually have people playing trying to cap the objectives they shouldnt be hard to find. It wasnt a huge map in CoD, and it needn't be in Source, but I just want a map that doesnt seem so linear

The other problem with making a map like that is optimisation. Would be a nightmare and the map would most likely have poor fps.

I still believe it is possible, the map itself wouldnt even need to be anywhere near the size of current maps because it would have a more square layout. I dont know much about mapping in Source but couldnt you just make the skybox and distant background less detailed?

The Skybox takes a fraction of the FPS, if you havent seen my Ardennes map (http://www.dayofdefeat.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63360) have a peek, thats about as open as I feel you can get a map.

The problem with a small map with every building open and with floors is that each open building consists of many brushes and being so close together most of the map would be drawn all the time hence the really bad FPS.

To the playability aspect it would be fine for Ladders I think but in public servers it would be murder.

The next map on after Ardennes I am currently scribbling out is going to be pretty open too the real challenge is keeping it playable.

Cool, if you want any help testing it out let me know, I am more than happy enough to take up some slack from whatever projects people are working on.

Originally posted by FBOTheLiuetenant
So far no map I've palyed feels really like a town. They have the buidlings and roads and rubble, but none really feel like a battle. There is no sense of a real place, atleast with the standard maps, theydont make me feel like I am there....

learn to map and make your ideal map then ? :D

Originally posted by FBOTheLiuetenant
but I just want a map that doesnt seem so linear

Try dod_sora, it's not linear. It feels more like a real place.

http://dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59839

:)

Originally posted by ultranew_b
Try dod_sora, it's not linear. It feels more like a real place.

http://dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59839

:)

I second that! Sora is awesome.

I've began work on my town map now, haven't really got much to show but heres the work so far:

http://dodnetwork.com/el/dod_unknown.jpg

Maybe you should look at dod_salerno_rc3, I think it look like a real village.

http://www.dod-federation.com/file.php?id=568

Maybe you should download more custom map. dod_anvil, dod_dijon also have a great feel to it. Other maps in beta version should also end up pretty as weel.

But like other mentioned there is limitation with the engine (FPS) and the gameplay. I could go on a lot on gameplay and why maps that are too big never get the success smaller maps gets, but I will say one:

Action on pub play suck when a map is too big and server operator drop them really fast because their members complain there is not enough action and too much running around.

For instance I like Ardennes but the map is not very popular in my group. So at the moment I think it not in rotation anymore.

For some reason the only map that makes me feel like im in a real town is.. Dod_Kalt. For some reason it just looks and feels more "Authentic" to me.

The layout and how the buildings are put together the ambience. It just seems to fit together nicely. The use of props and rubble give it a great effect.

Especially since there's no giant rockfaces and random cliffs everywhere. Those just seem to destroy any familiar look to "RealLife" and a real place to me.

mikeb is coming out with ramelle, destroyed town....

Like they said above.. the other too on my list seem to be Sora and anvil, they also look more like real towns.

What I would love would be those type of maps with a field surrounding it with trees in the 3d syybox very far away and you could circle the town and enter it from any direction.. but in the town its just like any other Dod map...

I'm I being to vague?

dod_anvil is an awesome non-linear map, enemies come out from everywhere either on the allies or axis side. Flags are not placed along a linear route, they are more placed evenly inside the town, and as far as I've experienced, most houses can be entered.

Originally posted by [oap]Agent_S
The Skybox takes a fraction of the FPS, if you havent seen my Ardennes map (http://www.dayofdefeat.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=63360) have a peek, thats about as open as I feel you can get a map.

You can get more open then that beleave it or not, I'm working on a map based on the Carentan Causeway also known as Purple Heart lane, and it takes up nearly then entire hammer grid width and length wise, the fps is good even on it and the veiw distance at the moment is set to 8500 with zclip at 8700. I'm going to be pushing the veiw distance back to 10000 or more if I can. I get 30-60fps on my comp, running 2.4ghz celeron, 1gig ddr400 and a gf4 ti4200 128mb vid card.
Even when testing we've been getting great FPS rates and little to no lag, plus the maps full of water aswell which is suprising and i've hardly used occluders or hints etc.

But city/village maps are alot more intensive now due to all the models, but done right it can work awesomely.

Thanks for everyones input. Yeah I have played Sora and love it, but I just need to look for more servers that have it in thier rotations. And those other maps look amazing

As said earlier, anvil is one great example