i hope that common infected trap on map 2 is not a joke, because it could crashed the game by that large number of infected. please remove that.

other than that, i would love to see the finished project-

Originally posted by Jaku:

i hope that common infected trap on map 2 is not a joke, because it could crashed the game by that large number of infected. please remove that.

other than that, i would love to see the finished project-

Yeah, I'll remove it. I'm pretty sure I used it to test different infected populations, but I got carried away. It will be a while though, since it takes over an hour to compile the 2nd map.

So first I just want to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this campaign, I think it's exactly the kind of map people are looking for and I think you executed it really well. With that said, I'd like to list out some of the things I liked/disliked :D I'll also point out any bugs I noticed along the way. (btw, I wasn't expecting my review to be so long. I do apologize about that. This is the first time I've ever reviewed a campaign)

MAP #1--
So immediately I noticed the dark, almost horror movie like vibe you were going for. I think that translated really well. The first map impaticular was a pretty solid one. I think you layed the building out pretty nicely, and I like that you have to pay attention to where you're walking or you could risk falling and end up having to backtrack. Theres definetely a sense of progression as you go through the burning building, into the ceda checkpoint, and that last hallway with the red lights was intense. Almost too intense lol!

Now I dont wanna harp on the lighting all that much, because I think I can tell the vibe you are going for. But one of the hardest things to get over was the combination of no light whatsoever and a lot of black smoke. I think especially for unexperianced players it could make it near impossible to see/make out where you are going or where you need to go. I do think the darkness adds to that horror-movie feel of the campaign which (again).. I enjoyed. But I feel like there may be ways you can come up with to subtly add light into the map. Even if its like a few flickering lights. I don't know how other people feel about this but I feel like maybe you should test run it a few times and see if you can understand what I'm talking about. The first time I played through it, I restarted the map a couple times just to make sure I was A) going the right way.. and B) seeing everything the map had to offer. But again, if this is just a problem you're hearing from me then don't change anything lol. Sometimes I can just have trouble with stuff like that lol. [EDIT: I just noticed that you recommend turning off all mods. I'm not sure if any of them were causing it to be extra dark for me, but I thought I should give you the benefit of the doubt]

Map #2!! --
This was my personal favorite, I think you nailed the design in every aspect on this one. You definitely get that sense of “the world is completely over" type of thing, which I feel like is something even valve struggled with on their campaigns. I was also impressed with some of the ways you were able to add light into this map (sorry to talk about lighting again). The car hanging down from the street above with its headlights just shining down in that first main room really sets the mood. That was something that stuck out as creative and refreshing.

I found that navigating through the sewers was both scary and fun. Its designed a lot more like a realistic sewer then say the sewers on No Mercy. So good job there. Also, I honestly enjoyed the lack of tier 2 weapons, or at least the strategic placing of them. Coming across a better weapon almost feels rewarding. There was a couple points that I noticed you made it so the survivors have to go out of there way to find tier 2 weapons, which I think is cool. The flood gate/bridge event was done really well too. Pressing the button and then being able to look down and see the bridges go down and realizing you have to backtrack is a cool idea that you don't see often in campaigns. At these paticular moments (for me at least) the hordes seemed to be a little weak. I'm not sure if that was just a 1 time thing and I got lucky. Cause on map 1 there were times where I was absolutely swarmed. But other than that, I think you layed it out very well.

And then finally after navigating through all of that, seeing that first bit of sunlight and getting outside felt like a really cool moment. Again, these subtle things are also things that I feel like even valve neglects to perfect. One bug that I noticed was most of my skybox was purple/black (untextured). I don't know if thats something on my side or if its something you havent added yet. But I thought it would be worth mentioning. I really like the idea of advancing to the next level via train. A couple of days ago I played through suicide blitz 2 for the first time and thought the train was such a cool idea that other people should totally use. So to see it here, especially executed so well, was really cool since I had just had that thought a few days ago. Also the tank breaking out of the train took me by complete surprise, I'm so used to opening those doors. I thought that was a really cool addition. Overall the 2nd map is really really good. The only bug I noticed was the skybox.

MAP #3--
So I knew your campaign was unfinished but as I played through I kept thinking that it seemed like such a finished product. But once the finale map loaded I understood, but I dont mean that in a bad way. I think it's rad to be able to play one of these while its in these early stages and being developed to be honest.

But right off the bat you can tell how much potential it has. First off, I really really liked the transition between day and night. You dont see that in campaigns too often. And since your campaign is a gritty, more realistic approach to the apocolypse (at least to me), I feel like the subtle night transition shows how much time has really passed and just how long of a day the survivors are having. Very very nice touch, I think more map creators should take notes off of that one.

Upon wandering out of our train we're met with a creepy dark scene of dead bodies along with a few explosions in the sky and surrounding areas. I feel like the whole vibe is that you're in a dangerous place and thats something thats really hard to capture in these created maps. The trainyard area is very detailed and the woodsy area up top has a really cool vibe to it. Overall you did a great job design wise. As somebody who used to mess around with Authoring Tools/SDK (on a really basic level) this stuff genuinely blows my mind.

I'm sure you're aware of this bug but in case you're not, in single player mode the bot survivors do not follow you out of the safe room on map 3. I figured that was just yet to be put in though. Thought I should mention it for good measure.

In conclusion I think you've created a really really great campaign that I feel like people are going to enjoy a lot. If theres any changes to be made, I think overall they are pretty minor. I would just focus on that last level, and of course any bugs or problems that get brought to your attention.

Thanks for reading
-Drugs

Wow. I am just amazed with the time you took to give feedback. This is the type of feedback I love to see. Anyway, I'm gonna start answering some questions. Every paragraph is going to be talking about a different issue.

On the topic of the smoke in the first map, pretty much everyone I played with experienced the same issue. It's not really a big deal for me since I know exactly where to go. There isn't a way to make the effect any lesser, so I'm either going to have to keep it or delete it, that's it. I'm most likely going to delete it and find some smoke particle effect to replace it.

The map being dark is by design. I specifically made the parking lot dark to increase intensity and make players aware. It also indirectly helps players know where they're going due to the CEDA area being lit up. I don't really have any plans in changing that, sorry.

For the hordes not being strong enough, I was actually planning on making that floodgate event spawn 2 panic events, but I just forgot to add it. At the time of making it though I was hyped up on how terrible Cold Stream was with it's panic events 24/7.

The skybox being missing I've never heard of before. It might be some of your mods, perhaps a skybox mod, but I haven't actually playtested THIS specific release with anyone else yet, so it might be an issue everyone has. I'll look into it further.

The bots not moving means there isn't a navmesh created for the map. I didn't create one yet since I'm nowhere near done with the map. That's just to be expected for a while. The 3rd map actually isn't the finale. I'm planning on having AT LEAST 4 maps. It very well might go to 5 maps, we'll see.




Again, thank you so much for posting your feedback, it was very productive and I love hearing people's opinions of my work, positive or negative. To Drugs, I hope this answered your questions. To anyone else reading, please post feedback like Drugs', it helps a lot.

Map 1 you need to fix. Frame rate goes down and I can't see anything even with my flashlight on. I am the kind of guy that if I can't beat the 1st part then I will not play the others. So fix map 1 so I see if the rest is worth my time or not. Runing in hevy smoke fog crap that I can't see through is not fun. I gave up after 1 hour of not knowing were to go and frame drop. Lighten up the smoke.
If you are going for horor on map 1 then you failed for me. The only thing that you scared me with was the frame dropping. Me not being to see anything is not scary it dumb and not fun......

Originally posted by VOKZEL:

The map being dark is by design. I specifically made the parking lot dark to increase intensity and make players aware. It also indirectly helps players know where they're going due to the CEDA area being lit up. I don't really have any plans in changing that, sorry.



Dark is fine but puting fog crap on my screen is not. Makes it 99% imposable to beat the map.

Dark is fine but puting fog crap on my screen is not. Makes it 99% imposable to beat the map.

That's not a healthy mentality. But I deleted the fog, so you can see now. Have fun.

I really enjoyed playing through this campaign, it was a lot of fun and looked like you put a lot of effort into it so far. The only real problems with the first chapters I had, was getting lost in the parking lot, and freezing every once and a while. But I see what you were going with the horror vibe, and I thought that it was pretty cool. Your use of lighting was fantastic, I knew exactly where to go when I saw light. As for the freezing every once and a while, my computer is garbage so this may only be a problem for me. One more thing before I go, there was a few too many useless doors in the first and second chapters, doors that you couldn't open even though there was nothing infront of them. Overall though, I believe this map has a lot of potential, and I'm excited to see where you take this in the future.

-Sincerely, Bahzzle

Thanks for the awesome and detailed response, I'm stoked that my feedback was helpful in anyway! You definately answered all of my questions and I appreciate you even taking the time to read what I had to say.

As far as the smoke goes on the 1st level, I saw that you mentioned that you took that out. I'm going to play it tonight and see how it feels and then compare and contrast. But my opinion has shifted the more I've thought about it. While the smoke could be annoying at first, it also makes you feel like you're in a real burning building. And this campaign gives off a very realistic vibe to it. So in the case that you don't find a replacement smoke effect, I would almost say to just keep it. Clearly it was easy enough for all to navigate through it without any help. But thats just my opinion! Hopefully more people can weigh in, which it looks like they are lol. It's really one of those difficult dev decisions, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think anybody who thinks the map is bad just because of the smoke is just wrong lol!

I also am in favor of not changing the lighting in the parking garage/ceda area. I think you're completely right about the light being a cool way to indicate where you go and thats one thing I really liked about it. Having nothing to use but your flashlight adds to the whole experiance, so thats a good move on your part for not changing that.

I think adding a 2nd panic event for the drawbridge part would be really beneficial! I wasn't sure if it was just me but if its not then I am in favor of that. I think that part acts as kind of the "make it or break it" part, and I feel as though it should be somewhat difficult.

Thank you for addressing the skybox issue, that was something I was really unsure about. But just playing versus like normal the last couple days I've noticed that I'm actually missing a couple of textures. Mostly pipes and small things, but I'm beginning to think that my skybox issue was something on my side. I'm gonna need to go through my mods to see what it is. So I would say its safe to forget that bug as anything! I don't think it will happen for anybody else.

Also, at the time of writing the first comment I hadn't read the whole description of the map so thats why I thought that map 3 was the finale. I'm stoked that its going to be a 4, possibly 5 map campaign! I can already picture what you could do with the 3rd map. I can't wait to see what else you're able to make!

As far as some other people saying they have framerate issues, I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in there and say I had no problems like that whatsoever. It ran smoothly for me from start to finish. The map didn't crash and I don't think my frames dropped at all. This may just be some peoples computers, I'm not sure. But my experiance was solid all the way through.

Again I'm stoked that I was able to contribute in anyway, I'm subscribed to this discussion because I find it really interesting and like to see what other people have to say about it. You have a cool campaign, can't wait to see what comes next.

Thanks for reading!
-Drugs

Originally posted by Drugs Bunny™:

As far as the smoke goes on the 1st level, I saw that you mentioned that you took that out. I'm going to play it tonight and see how it feels and then compare and contrast. But my opinion has shifted the more I've thought about it. While the smoke could be annoying at first, it also makes you feel like you're in a real burning building. And this campaign gives off a very realistic vibe to it. So in the case that you don't find a replacement smoke effect, I would almost say to just keep it. Clearly it was easy enough for all to navigate through it without any help. But thats just my opinion! Hopefully more people can weigh in, which it looks like they are lol. It's really one of those difficult dev decisions, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think anybody who thinks the map is bad just because of the smoke is just wrong lol!

It is a difficult decision. I like the effect but I just wish there was a way to turn it down. Also, on the frame rate issue, I can see what's causing it. Map 1 isn't really optimized that well since it's my first ever actual map and I never fully compiled it properly out of laziness. When I look in certain areas it goes to 200 fps but if I look in another area it plummets to 70.

But, again, thank you for your feedback and reply. It's really appreciated.

Originally posted by Bahzzle:

One more thing before I go, there was a few too many useless doors in the first and second chapters, doors that you couldn't open even though there was nothing infront of them. Overall though, I believe this map has a lot of potential, and I'm excited to see where you take this in the future.

-Sincerely, Bahzzle

Yeah, I thought the unopenable doors were excessive in the second map, but in the first map it's intentional to get people confused because they are supposed to find the saferoom. When I update Map 2 (which won't be a while since it takes forever to compile) I'll add barricades and props and stuff on the doors to signal that it's locked.

Thanks for the reply. I feel like I'm that kind of player, who wants to look in every room on the map for supplies, so this is probably just an issue with me...

Don't know if this can be done, but you may want to adjust the spawn radius/area for the common infected. Some spawn just a few feet in front of me. They weren't spawned in due to boomer bile or anything, they appeared as I was leaving a random room. Kind of breaks the immersion imo. (Noticed this in the parking lot area).

Originally posted by Reiji:

Don't know if this can be done, but you may want to adjust the spawn radius/area for the common infected. Some spawn just a few feet in front of me. They weren't spawned in due to boomer bile or anything, they appeared as I was leaving a random room. Kind of breaks the immersion imo. (Noticed this in the parking lot area).

I noticed this issue a lot while play testing but just didn't decide to fix it. I'll look into it.