One Hour Mapping Contest - Nexball - Finished

[merlijn]

So here are my judgements for the revised maps, thanks to you all for the great effort!

Map 3 - No Arena - Ai

Originality : 8
Gameplay : 5
Eyecandy : 7
Overall : 6

This map looks like it has a lot of potential, but it still really lacks in the playability department. I'm not so sure adding weapons to nexball works out well, in our judgement game it turned out to be more of a shoot-out than a ballgame. Good job on the graphics though, it looks very nice. Some suggestions:

- More lava, so it's possible to laser opponents into it.
- If you don't have a laser, it takes pretty long to jump your way to the jetpack.
- Do something more for the goals, painted walls are a little boring.

Map 4 - CB Nexball - C. Brutail

Originality : 9
Gameplay : 8
Eyecandy : 9
Overall : 9

Great update, which makes for much more interesting gameplay. One thing still bugs me though, the small ledges you walk on make it really easy for an opponent to push you off when grabbing the ball, so you'll probably have to score from further away from the goal. This is essentially pretty hard and you will lose points again if the ball gets into the lava. I think the map should either have water instead of lava, or wider ledges. Personally I'd like to give it a try with water, as it could be more fun with lots of players.

Map 5 - Second Stage - TVR

Originality : 8
Gameplay : 7
Eyecandy : 7
Overall : 8

You've done some nice work on this map, though it still has some things that could be better. The triangle shaped goals are fun, but I think they would be better if they were reversed horizontally and that only the back would be marked as the goal area. This would make defence more interesting as it would be hard to shoot over the other player. Another thing is that the ramps still aren't really useful.

Map 6 - Rock 'n Ball - morphed

Originality : 9
Gameplay : 8
Eyecandy : 9
Overall : 9

Very nice map, lot of fun to play and pretty hard since both the ground and the board on the back of the goal aren't flat. Some things that still need fixing:

- You can score from underneath the goal.
- The 'jumping rocks' aren't solid (the ball can disappear in them).
- Bouncing up to make a dunk doesn't really get you high enough. In your map it's actually easier to score from the playing field than to use the dunk rocks.

Again thank you all for the added effort, and I hope to see more nexball maps when you have new inspiration

[TVR]

Map 5 - Second Stage - TVR

... The triangle shaped goals are fun, but I think they would be better if they were reversed horizontally... This would make defence more interesting as it would be hard to shoot over the other player ... Another thing is that the ramps still aren't really useful. ...

The goals are shaped like V's in order to make ground defence easy, but make goals shot from the second stage ramps even easier...

[FruitieX]

My judgements for the fixed maps:

Map 3 - No Arena - Ai

Originality : 7
Gameplay : 4
Eyecandy : 7
Overall : 6

The goals are too big, which makes scoring right from the middle way too easy. You could add some obstacle before the goal so that the enemy has to come closer in order to score. I'd also like to see a goal on the second floor, but same thing here: make it harder to score from distance.
Weapons aren't that great in nexball it seems so you should perhaps remove those...
As for eyecandy, I like how the map looks. The floor on the upper floor could be thicker though, it looks very unstable now
Also, raise the skybox and put a weaponclip there instead. This should prevent the black spots on the upper parts of walls. Be sure to compile the map with higher quality settings too!

Map 4 - CB Nexball - C. Brutail

Originality : 9
Gameplay : 8
Eyecandy : 9
Overall : 8

Very nice! I like this one very much. There are a few improvements that you still could do though, IMO. First, there should really be a ledge on the left and right leading to the terrain. Secondly, I'm getting poor performance on the map probably because of the trees. Maybe there should be less trees on the sides to fix this. Last, a tiny, hard to fix detail: it's too easy to get up on the edges of the terrain, which reveals the edge of the cloud layer, looking rather ugly. Could be fixed by extruding the terrain further, and using a weaponclip where the skybox is now. Don't want to be picky, as I said it's a very tiny detail and all in all, the map is great.

Map 5 - Second Stage - TVR

Originality : 8
Gameplay : 7
Eyecandy : 5
Overall : 8

I still don't think the map looks too good with it's invisible edges and missing textures, but gameplay is definitely better and more interesting with the V shaped goals. It could use some more details, but other than that it's a good map.

Map 6 - Rock 'n Ball - morphed

Originality : 8
Gameplay : 5
Eyecandy : 9
Overall : 8

The map is quite nice now that you fixed some of the bugs. Some bugs are still there, like it's possible to score from under the basket, sometimes the ball gets stuck on the basket, the chrystal things are non-solid and jumppads don't bounce you high enough. Something I did not like though is that the textures weren't GPL, so I had fixed that some time ago along with almost all bugs I named: http://www.hrfdesign.com/crap/maps/nexb ... l_v1r3.pk3

[PinkRobot]

Map 3 - No Arena - Ai

Originality : 7
Gameplay : 5
Eyecandy : 8
Overall : 7

A nice improvement on the graphics part of this map, but I don't think the weapons really work on it. On your map, the gameplay suffers from it. I don't think weapons on a nexball map really work at all really, but maybe we have not found the right way to do that yet. The problem with laser on it is that you can score a goal from the moment it spawns until it's in the goal within 3 seconds by just lasering and kicking/shooting at the same time so for sure, a map with laser on it would need a lot more obstacles on it. Still, this map has an original concept and i still enjoyed playing it.

Map 4 - CB Nexball - C. Brutail

Originality : 9
Gameplay : 6
Eyecandy : 8
Overall : 7

This map looks the business and the idea is still rocksolid. But the more we've played it the more the gameplay appears to lack. Although it would make the map look less cool (and the name would be not very suited anymore) but I would prefer the platforms to be over water and to be much lower, at least at some parts, so you could get back on the platforms. Right now, a steal means a frag I really enjoy this map though

Map 5 - Second Stage - TVR

Originality : 7
Gameplay : 7
Eyecandy : 5
Overall : 7

I like the way you improved this map, the slanted platforms in the middle should make for some interesting gameplay. Maybe the lower part should be made less attractive to play right through, so that you're more likely to take the high route. The shape of the goals is a nice idea and made me wonder if there should be a ledge in fron of it so you really have to bounce it in the goal. Graphics are still somewhat rough, missing textures should have been replaced for this version. I'm still missing hint brushes by the way.

Map 6 - Rock 'n Ball - morphed

Originality : 8
Gameplay : 5
Eyecandy : 9
Overall : 8

This map is certainly an improvement over the first installment, unfortunately there are still some bugs remaining. The eyecandy is just fabulous of course, but it's very hard to score. The jumppads don't shoot you up high enough to really be able to score from them. I do get a really happy fuzzy beach feeling when playing on this map.

[PinkRobot]

This means that the final scores for the final round are as follows:

CB Nexball - C. Brutail

Technical points : 5 + 5 = 10 -> x1 = 10
FruitieX : 9 + 8 + 9 + 8 = 34 -> x2 = 66
Merlijn : 9 + 8 + 9 + 9 = 35 -> x2 = 70
PinkRobot : 9 + 6 + 8 + 7 = 30 -> x2 = 60

--------------------------------------------------------> total points : 206 (1st place)

Rock 'n Ball - morphed

Technical points : 5 + 5 = 10 -> x1 = 10
FruitieX : 8 + 5 + 9 + 8 = 30 -> x2 = 60
Merlijn : 9 + 8 + 9 + 9 = 35 -> x2 = 70
PinkRobot : 8 + 5 + 9 + 8 = 30 -> x2 = 60

--------------------------------------------------------> total points : 200 (2nd place)

Second Stage - TVR

Technical points : 5 + 5 = 10 -> x1 = 10
FruitieX : 7 + 4 + 7 + 6 = 24 -> x2 = 48
Merlijn : 8 + 7 + 7 + 8 = 30 -> x2 = 60
PinkRobot : 7 + 7 + 5 + 7 = 26 -> x2 = 52

--------------------------------------------------------> total points : 170 (3rd place)

No Arena - Ai

Technical points : 5 + 5 = 10 -> x1 = 10
FruitieX : 7 + 4 + 7 + 6 = 24 -> x2 = 48
Merlijn : 8 + 5 + 7 + 6 = 26 -> x2 = 52
PinkRobot : 7 + 5 + 8 + 7 = 27 -> x2 = 54
--------------------------------------------------------> total points : 164 (4th place)

So C. Brutail is still the winner! You get to keep your trophy man What a small margin though, only 6 points between first and second place!

Once again, thanks to everyone who competed in round 1 of this Nexball Mapping compo and especially to our competitors in round 2, good work on updating your maps all round! Also thanks once again to FruitieX and Merlijn for helping out by judging the maps!