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looks really nice and also a big battlefield for airshots :>

Quoted from tteh-t

[…]
Or maybe I should ask what exactly? Who used what in which map?

Look for example, at the displacement hoodoos at the middle on Basalt. From Badlands.

Nice feedback waster : )

I always welcome custom maps, I hope this one is another one that sucsseds!

Quoted from ilike2spin

[…]

People don’t want to play pl and koth, so a 5cp alternative of good pl and koth maps are favoured I guess.

I don’t think you get what I meant, it’s a matter of ethics not a matter of quality. I was simply using those 2 maps as a reference for previous misdeeds.

The one overriding sentiment for me, is that the map is essentially flat. Any height difference or advantage is purely for optimisation purposes (I assume) or to append another route to an area. The ground areas, whilst providing height differentials, still essentially keep the combat at the same level across the entire map. This could be said of Granary, but Granary features pipes at the last point, and the containers at middle. The only part of Mainline which has this feature is the small bridge overlooking the second point.

The layout itself, whilst unique, is not particularly exciting, a series of angle roof buildings connecting open areas – and this is a theme which is repeated across the entire map. No point stands out as a “whoa, this is new, innovative and exciting,” but rather, that the points are “new… but not particularly interesting,” for me at least.

There are also some, I believe, poor design decisions around the 2nd point. It is sunk into the ground such that it is below the rest of the play area. This has some negative effects – defending the point is made much more difficult for the team who owns it (which, upon reflection, could be to counteract some huge advantage the team has defending the point), and furhtermore, it is a bucket for grenade spam – any rollies in the area, will undoubtedly collect into the capture point.

Visually, the map is a mess in places, and overall just dull. There is no story behind the map, and it suffers for it. Overlays are strewn haphardly across the walls, with each and every angled roof featuring the same lifeless texture (in many cases, orientated in the wrong direction – the grain should come down the roof). Every outdoor wall has an assortment of windows, vents and hatches, cluttering the map’s detail, and ultimately making everything look much the same.

Any displacements the author made himself are poor and look unnatural, with the intention to make the displacement look reasonably curvy, than to mimic geology – resulting in awful looking clumps of rock strewn around the maps. Other displacements that do look good were copy+pasted from Badlands (in the detail area here http://i49.tinypic.com/2nn9rq.jpg, on the right of the image here http://i49.tinypic.com/14mxgg5.jpg ), with no attempt to disguise that fact. The concrete in which the rails are in at the middle are taken from Well.

One thing that annoys me greatly, is how inconsistently the angled roofs are made. Generally, they should be 4 units thick with an overhang of 8/16 units -this should be consistent throughout the map. In Mainline however, they’re a total shambles – some roof have different textures to the roof tiling on their side, some have roof tiles to the side, some vertically, some are unnaturally thick, some have little or no overhang at all. It all adds up to make something that is horribly inconsistent, yet dull and repetitive at the same time. The entire map’s visual theme is a contradiction in some place or another.

I haven’t played the map enough to make a judgement on its gameplay, but undoubtedly, it will play better than it looks.

All this said, there is one thing I would like to say. Every custom map will play alright if you have a layout that’s reasonably balanced and good spawn times, but maps that are truely special will introduce exciting new layouts, with height-based gameplay and opportunity for new tactics. At the end of the day, Mainline doesn’t have this quality, the CP that makes you think and try new things – like the Badlands spire. Until it has this special quality, I’d much rather play something that does have a special quality, rather than a map with a layout that will ultimately play a bit like every other map out there. That’s what Mainline is, it’s just another map, and I don’t think it deserves as much attention as it’s been getting (in America, that is).

We, competitive players as a whole, don’t really find new maps to play on unless they’re force fed down our throuts, rather preferring to err on the side of caution by playing what we already know. On the rare occasion maps do make it through, they’re suddenly hailed as the next coming, the map to play, and I suspect if any map that played decently was given the same treatment, we’d all find enjoyment (at the end of the day) in it. Yet, there’s usually something out there that’s better than it, but does not recieve the same vocal support. I think we need to start finding these maps for ourselves rather than just accepting what’s given.

We have played this several times now on finnish gather.
And its awesome map to play, but its still a scout map.
Scouts can roam around almost freely and flank all the time.

but I do like this map, alot.

did the map maker actually read it?

FYI, RC5 is out

just played it in a lobby : )