Once the geometry was all built, I was anxious to test the map with real players.  I got ready to call some buddies of mine for an all night testfest when I realized… hey!  Even though I’ve been working on this map all week or so, none of my would be testers will know anything about it’s twists and turns.  They are pretty (NOT) forgiving so I slammed down the phone, fired up Hammer and dropped a little signage.  Both bases had the same texture so these location markers had to be huge and obvious.

In placing the signs all around, the obvious occurs to me.  This is what we as level designers are supposed to be doing throughout the entire process!  Maybe not always as blatant as the Capture Point there, but through textures, lighting, and geometry, information needs to be communicated to the player.  It seems like such a no-brainer, but is so often overlooked.  I have added a new goal to this project: Make sure each location can be described in 2-3 words.

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My biggest gripe about custom maps is that many of them are just too big. As in, it takes more than 60 seconds to get from one end of them to the other. A ton of stuff can happen in 60 seconds. A flag can be returned, a player can die and re-spawn at least 4 times, and a sentry gun can be built in taken all the way to level 3 in this span of time. Anyone can tell you running for 5 minutes just to get killed in 5 seconds is just no fun. Therefore, defining the pacing to the level is pivotal.

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So it’s all well and good that I have my sketch, but now I needed to get started actually MAKING the dang map.  This is where HAMMER comes in.  Part of the Source SDK, Hammer lets you create and modify level textures and models, as well as place scripted events.  Hammer is a pretty robust tool and is the same tool Valve developers use to create official maps.  At first, I was pretty skeptical…  I’ve used an earlier version of Hammer (back in TFC days) and it was rough.  Then, once again, when HL2 first came out.  It was better, but it still seemed impossible to achieve the level of complexity that one could see in the official maps.  The initial 5 minutes with the tool was changing my mind, and then I cam across the wonderful Valve Developer Community. 

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I have been playing Team Fortress 2 basically every free moment I with my friends and it’s been great.  Unfortunately, all the maps are Control Point/Assault style maps as opposed to Capture the Flag.  What this means is, I end up playing a LOT of CTF_2Fort.  I can’t escape it, especially when my friends feel nostalgic for the TFC glory days.  So after a swift kick in the pants, I have decided to build a map to put the CTF back in TFC.

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This has been one crazy year.  With your help we’ve started to transition from a Art Studio to a real Video Game Studio.  The support of all you wonderful fans over the years has inspired and encouraged me to keep fighting and make things happen.  So what I want is to make this  spot a way to keep in better touch with all of you.  As I get deeper and deeper into engine programming I’m finding I have less and less time for things like AIM, or DA.  All those fun fun social networking activities just eat up all my time.  It’s kinda funny that now that all I do is video games I have less time then when I was in college and had 2 jobs!

 Which brings me to this space… The Dragon’s Den website is perpetually never where I want it for you.  Long time visitors of the page can attest that it started out kinda blog style with news and lots of pages.  Then (because it was annoying) Javascript heavy as I started automating things and removed the news in favor of an Oekaki Board.  Changed the gallery a few times, added and subtracted a diary until the whole bloated mess got deleted.  What I would like is to bring features to this site that you want.  There should be more stuff for you to play with.  Did you like the Oekaki Board?  Until I get a clear idea I’m going to write about things I’m programming, drawing, watching, or playing.  For now this should do.