Casablanca

info
cp_casablanca is a Gravelpit like map, taking place in an south mediterranean style city. Blu have discovered that Red have using the place as a intelligence spot or worse. They must take other all the buildings used by their archfoes.

Casablanca is significantly larger than its older revision. In the current one, Red have too succesive spawns and engineers far more solid options.

Update

Update to revision V2_A4a

* Last capture point redone from scratch
* Red have to spawns : one active while A and B are not capped, one active for point C defence
* Laser arrays protect the last zone from blu incursions while A and B are still held
* Some passages reopened, some closed to improve optimization
* New area textured and lit but not detailed.
* Fixes on the skybox

Work

After some midly welcomed update, I've reworked the second half of the map. This revision seems balanced as far as the two first capture point go, but I lack feedback about how the last CP plays. Red have two successive spawn, a setup somewhat experimental in gravelpit like maps, but players told me it would have been to difficult overwhise, since the map grew significantly larger from its early stage.

[Uriak]

Incoming work : point B

The current point B is mainly opened, while surrounded by a covered L shaped gallery. Red have a spawn (one of two) between C and B, and a series a long and boring corridors grant them covered access to the point.



I aim to add two buildings. One will take the place of an opened roof, to deny extreme sight line and optimize things. The other is a big building extending itself behind the current map limites. It would feature a ground level story 1, with an acess from the CP zone. And a upper level 2, giving access to the roofs bordering the CP. This building would also feature an acess from the future red Spawn, and a one way passage 3, useful for Blu.
I can't tell if such a zone with no direct sight on the cap point would be very useful. But currently in casablanca there is a lack of such protected zones, useful for engies.

To make things clearer, here's a shot of the current CP B , viewed from the red perspective (imagine the viewer looking at the East on the map)

You can see the L shaped roof and gallery bordering the CP. And the brown bordered roof that serve as one of the main routes for blu attackers.

If you want to get a more extensive glimpse of the old version of casablanca, you can get it there

[Uriak]

Hello, here's are some screens from the revamped control point B.

By the way, anyone knows how to force vrad to cast shadows from a translucent textured brush ? Youme's tutorial is about alpha mapped props, but I can't find any discussion on this topic...

[Zeewier]

That tutorial should explain everything perfectly... and there is a discussion in the thread about it I think

[Owlruler]

wow, this looks very nice.

[Uriak]

Thank you

So, I'm pondering about some gameplay tweaking there. Casablanca always offered some nice sniper positions, although there are protected alternatives (you don't have to use the roofs at all to go anywhere). But with my most recent changes, I think it will need some line sight limitations.

With a new building WH on A, I opened a sniper line of sight, and there ise one from CP B as well, both covering the roof, the blue team is most likely to use at start (they spawn on the right bottom corner)



So I'm hesitating between to solutions :

1 : adding 2 small obstacles (jumpable by a scout) on that roof.



2 : adding one obstacle and a fence like barrier, with a new passage on that building between the roof and CP A.



I've the feeling, 1) is a bit artificial (and I don't really know what would that obstacle be to keep with the map setting, but 2) tends to kill a bit the "opened" nature of that map. I already closing some existing gaps and I wouldn't end with a enclosed map in the end.

[Apom]

I think a fence will be hard to fit in your map's theme (option 2 also gives the impression of creating a one-way passage, which is probably bad in gameplay terms).

If you choose option 1, you could use some market stands (to fit with the awning that's in the area) with fruits or whatever. Of course, people would jump into the fruits, because those TF2 players are so rude.

Maybe another option is to expand H so that it fills the gap? And give it doors that are offset in such fashion that you can move, but not have a clear line of sight across it.

[Uriak]

Players on CPC forum agreed to this, too. I don't have any fruit (could be done by texture, at least, some spices...) but I could pile up some things. I've replaced the awnings with displacement based ones and with a new fabric texture, so I'm likely to add more of them to spice up the area.

[FLOOR_MASTER]

It's been a while since we ran this on 2f2f, but from what I remember, the time limits were unusually long. If I'm remembering correctly, has this been addressed?

[Uriak]

On the current build, it's 6 min + 4 + 4 with a maximum capped at 10 minutes. (I believe, I should check) I'm speaking of B6 build, the one currently available on fpsbanana. It's pretty much balanced, at least on our server : http://www.uber.fr/stats/map.php?id=8

I may tweak this a bit on the newer version, but it will mostly revolve around tweaking both teams respawn wave times (since red will have to travel more to defend the first 2 control points, and less with the last one)