the new black mesa....

[Salty-Inactive]

perhaps i was a little harsh in calling the map awful. Its a word that is very downgrading and hurt full and i apologize for its use. However this does not change my opinion or my views on the current map. the map as it is , is in an very dangerous state. I honestly do think that he did too much to fast , even though it seems to be a test version.
i also don't blame any one for venting on my post.
I have a very large pool of clan exp and have found these posts to be the most constructive to bettering things
( i have been part of more than 30 clans )
Things like privately telling the creator your thoughts can be helpfull but also disorganized. it is much better to simply make a thread which tackles such an issue head on so that all perspectives and views are covered with out bias. yes im a little miffed that my camping spots were sacked but thats life. And yes this may have been a bit of a hot button topic for me to post but i honestly believe that it was both necessary and beneficial to dragonhills map.
remember im a fan of black mesa, i only want it to get better.

 

[FreakingHell]

I've been having trouble finding the third tier over b/k. if I could find this it would get a lot easier...

 

[holy poop godly]

Hello, for all of you who do not know who i am, i am Saltychipmunk, Maddhatter190, The MagicallyMagesticMoose,THUNDERHORSE!, and a bunch of other names. I am currently the rank 1 hl stats player on your servers and good fan of your black mesa. That is until this current build of it was released. but ill get to that in a few moments.
First i would like to thank Dragon hill for making black mesa. over the last several months i have been an active player of that map and have found it to be one of the most high quality maps in tf2. It had the right mix of open areas, vents and choke points to ensure that games were both fun, exciting and long lasting. It had a very nice bonus in that one didn't actually have to visit every part of the map or even follow the caps to be an important contribution. The heavys and engineers could have fun in the enclosed spaces of ,B,L,C and K while the more mobile classes had A. The vents weer complex, but not to the point of confusion and the overall flow of the map felt refined and smooth.
this is not to say it was perfect. Afterall, no map can be.
It had its fair share of down sides like the glitchy elevators and air vents that lead to C and L or the bugged spawn doors as well as the annoying vent entrances , which were elevated about 3 inches off the ground for no good reason.
Most of these short comings were fixed in the new version, but at the cost of so much. Gone are the well designed vent spaces that made playing heavy and demoman a joy; replaced by a network of intertwining crawlspaces so needless and pointless that it makes me cry. These vents go literally everywhere. Literally there's a part of the map where one vent exit is 9 feet from another one. WTH. further more cudos to dragon hill for making the already difficult to capture last point even harder to cap by generously offering a platform on which engineers can spam sentries above the bloody point , well out of the range of heavys engys scouts and even soldiers. ( yes i know the 4th spawn leads to this platform , but i find it funny when you use it and appear in front of 3 sentry guns . Brilliant.) And then there's the spawns them selves, i can understand 2 spawns but why 4 . did the carebears complain THAT much that you were forced to add a bunch of needless hallways just to appease the players that only play on the map maybe 15 min a week? Yes, i know spawn camping was a problem but this is just ludicrous. The map as it is now is probably twice the size of the previous version, Thats twice the unused spaces and twice the confusion.
As it stands you made all the things i hate about black mesa worse and marginalized all the good things.

i know im going to get serious flak from the community but who cares this map is awful, just awful.
your thoughts , hate, love etc...

IF you dont like a map then why play on it, go to a different map.

 

[Paraplegic_Ballerina]

Of course it was a matter of time before Para B. Black Mesa's resident heavy mascot posted on this thread so here I go.

I have to agree with Salty. While infinitely frustrating as campers are V2T3 was the better version. This new map isn't even remotely laid out like that one. Which for someone who knows V2T3 by heart this map is just a labyrinth. All the cat walks and vents are just insanely unnecessary. And A looked like a hot mess. As for the doors that require you to push a button: In the heat of battle I'm not going to go "OOPS! I forgot to lock the door!" The one way blast doors made it a challenge. The size of it looks like its going to be even harder to get to one point or another and be able to actually win. With V2T3 you could at least run from L to C in a hustle if points were being capped.

And I must say I am seriously disheartened at some of your guys response. Salty is a regular player on our server and while he is not a member should still be treated with respect. He RESPECTFULLY came to our forums to express his opinions in a calm manner and doesn't deserve the tongue lashings. He could have easily come here and acted like a child but didn't so all of you shouldn't either.

-Para B.

 

[EsQuiRe]

Blackmesa.v2t3 was perfect the way it was. Sure there was spawn camping, but its not like the opposing team could actually enter your spawn. when a heavy/medic combo pinned you down in your own spawn, it last only about a minute at most, and a few demomen spam could easily cause them to retreat. In my opinion it was in no way spawn camping. More like spawn controlling so that the other team could capture the last point. I played the new version for 1h30 minutes and completely hated. Was the map designed for 64 players or something? Enter the labyrinth that are the vents and u can walk around for several minutes without meeting any opponents. A map with no single discrete chokepoints is just not really all that fun. I know dragonhill works hard on these maps, and we are all forever in debt to him for introducing blackmesa to the community, but ultimatly it is us, the regular players who decide the fate of a map. I vote for bringing back old blackmesa. Just my $0.02.

 

[Porkchop1414]

And I must say I am seriously disheartened at some of your guys response. Salty is a regular player on our server and while he is not a member should still be treated with respect. He RESPECTFULLY came to our forums to express his opinions in a calm manner and doesn't deserve the tongue lashings. He could have easily come here and acted like a child but didn't so all of you shouldn't either.

-Para B.

Couldn't agree more! I had to double check the web address! And thanks Dragonhill for putting time in to actually update your map!

 

[I-Die-Often]

I love the new spawn... but the vents are TOO complicated... there are no good places (just like Salty said) to be a demo or a heavy.... much less set up as an engineer. he map now seems overly complicated.... I like the main areas being better intertwined...

I remember when V2 first came out... and everyone hated it.... so MAYBE this will grow on me... but since I play demoman (most of the time), it is unlikely.

 

[/dev/null]

I tried mesa and did not get it. The vents never made much sense to me.

That being said - hey salty, give Warpath a try! I've wandered into mesa looking for you specifically.

 

[RESPAWN]

Guys, first of all, let me say that everybody is entitled to their opinion on the map. You may not agree with somebody's opinion, but that is no excuse to flame them for it. I'm very disappointed with the way that some of you attacked another player for their opinion, and was half way to locking this thread after reading some of those posts.

eGO likes to represent itself as a mature gaming community, so let's all try to act mature in this thread, ok?

That said, if you don't like something about the new map, please present it in a constructive manner. In my experience, constructive criticism usually goes over a lot better than inflamatory remarks.

I myself was a big fan of v2t3 and in recent months have probably played that map more often than not. While I have not yet had a chance to play the new version, I'm looking forward to see what all the fuss is about. It sounds like the new version has created quite a stir amongst the Black Mesa faithful, and opinions seem to fall very much one way or the other. That's fine. One doesn't need to be an expert in map design to decide if they like a particular map, and unfortunately not everybody is going to like every map.

Please, if you have any criticisms about the new map, post it in one of the BM threads in a polite manner and/or PM Dragonhill about it. I don't want to see a flame war develop on our forums over this.


P.S. Dragonhill, I haven't played the new map yet, but let me say how much I appreciate your efforts in creating new maps for us. For all I know, I may also decide that I don't like the new map after I play it. But, no matter what my opinion is, I want to extend my gratitude for your continuing efforts to improve on an eGO staple.

P.S.S. I-Die-Often, you bring up a good point about how people didn't like V2 when it was first released, and that was the first thought I had today as people's opinions started trickling in. I didn't like V2 at first. Partly because the cap order was switched around and I kept getting lost. That said, I kept going back after some time, learned the new map, and it quickly became one of my favorites.

P.P.S. Masterpiece, I just saw that I made it into your .sig. I remember that kill quite vividly and you deserve mega kudos on it. It was quite an impressive use of the compression blast and the shotgun.

 

[holy poop godly]

i say put V7 and V3 on rotation

 

[Gar]

Tend to agree with I-Die-Often... give the map some time and it may grow in overall appeal. I felt V2 was very confusing the first time I played it. The addiction grew with time as you learned and discovered the subtle nuances of that map. As I played the new version tonight, it got better and better too as it become more and more familiar.

True there are some things like the portal and vents that can be improved, but after all, this is a test version. Overall, Dragonhill did an awesome job... map creation is not an easy task.

And be kind to Salty... it is always good to express opinions and provide open feedback. That's how things in life improve. Having been killed by Salty probably about a 1000 times when he was in those vents with a med buddy, it was always frustrating... but it also presented a good challenge and that's what the game is all about.

 

[Justice Scalia]

Heya!

Unrelated to the various play issues some other posters have noted, I'd like to suggest that the barnacles on the ceilings and other newly-added HL1-ish creatures be removed, simply for the reason that they visually clutter what was a very visually clean map. I mean, they're consistent with the map theme and are cool once, but the next hundred times you play the map you just want to play the map, and not get distracted by nonfunctional barnacles on the ceilings.

O yah, i'd leave the fish where he is in the water, though. He works well down there.

Thanks for the sweet map, DragonHill.

 

[Salty-Inactive]

perhaps it would be a good idea to use both versions

yeah i did not like v 2 either but that did grow on me eventually as well

however im almost positive this new version is twice the size of version 2 in all aspects



on a side note ( less barnacles more head crabs )

in a response to holy poop godly

yeah i do play on other maps now mesa is off my fav list and im now a regular of Egypt

 

[harro]

I agree with salty.

For all the spawn camping haters. It takes skill to spawn camp for 10 minutes!!!

 

[Troth]

I'm also having some trouble adjusting. I was excited about the upcoming changes, but I have to admit being baffled in the vents at times. I tried using the upper platform above the final point to get the sentries posted there, but it was difficult to effectively harass the engineers from the four little holes in the floor. In the end, I guess I was expecting an update to my favorite existing map when instead it has the feel of a brand new map.

This is just my honest opinion, it's not a criticism of the skill and dedication that Dragonhill has shown with his work.

 

[jshotzz]

Dragonhill I praise you for bringing mesa but this version I will have to co-sign with goretex.

"I know it's ridiculously hard to do mapmaking. It takes a lot of skill, patience, and talent to make something as great as blackmesa. i was really excited to play it when you talked about the cool changes you made. But the new version has changed way too much for me to like it anymore."

I'm sure you will take all the constructive criticism and output something everyone will love.

 

[Natirasha]

Hey people!

Anyways, I gotta agree with salty here. Partly because I miss the days of dominating the entire enemy team by sitting behind salty/esquire/heavy-of-the-day, but as salty said, such is life. The main reason for my dislike is, to be quite frank, its confusing as hell.

Don't get me wrong--Blackmesa v2t3 wasn't the most simple of maps to understand, but the learning curve was much, much lower. I

In this one, the vent system, which used to lead to places that make some sorta sense. In the main vent, if you turned left, you would go to L/C. If you continued on, you went behind L/C and if you continued even farther, it would lead to B/K. In the new one, you can never be really sure where your vent leads. The main ventway even had like 12 new passages added to it, making what once was a simple passageway a labyrinth. In v2t3 I knew at the very least that I wasn't going in circles. In v2t7, it's possible--and actually quite easy, especially for a new player--to wander around in circles getting absolutely nowhere.

The portals to B/K in spawn are absolutely useless. They lead you to the second floor of the respective cap points, which is where, as has been pointed out, the god-tier place for engineers to build sentries. Then, if you get through the sentry spam, you have to deal with a tilted hud that screws up aiming and movement, making you a sitting duck. The third tier, which is apparently the attacker's tier, is still useless towards the attackers. The reason is that the engineers build on the second floor, which the people on floor three have to get through to get to the cap point. And, if by chance the third-floor attackers use an uber to rid floor 2 of dudes, then they have no uber to eliminate dudes on the point. This leads to stalemates. We just finished playing 13 games. Of 13 games, 12 were stalemates and 1 was rickrolled. At the very least, we need to enable sudden-death.

Finally, there's A. While I do like the lack of elevators, theres a huge new problem. The staircase, which used to be one of the main exits to the enemy spawn, you have to go through a vat of boiling acid, which is a horrible idea. And I'm not even going to talk about the fish...The conveyor belt catwalks, while cool, remove an old strategic position to chill at and don't do anything useful once you leave them. Finally, and this is a much more minor complaint, but I miss the guardrails on A. It's very annoying being knocked off a platform because some random scout decided to go FAN.

More to come, but it's getting late.

 

[BlackMesaSouth]

I think the triple tiered last points are a great idea but as it has been said limit engineering building spots. I like the new landing areas for the suction vents to L and C. You can go up and not have to worry about being decimated unless a Spy or Demo is camped in the associated vents. I personally prefer the new A point and the new Spawns. If anything I'd say keep the new A and Spawn and use the old vent system with those. Not real sure how that would sork, but just kind of thinking of a combo of the best of the new and the old.

I still enjoy Black mesa in this version but I still at the moment prefer the last version, but ti might be that this is kind of like being in a nice comfy cottage with a fire (BM V2) and then having someone throw you out in the cold with some sticks and telling you to build another cabin NAOW! (In non-poor analogy terms not as comfortable with this one yet)

 

[EsQuiRe]

yeah i do play on other maps now mesa is off my fav list and im now a regular of Egypt

I too am trying to find a new home. Egypt is probably the one im leaning towards, as soon as i get over the fact that the first part results in a stalemate 95% of the time.

 

[Dragonhill]

hola all

i'm keeping track of the comments...so far i see the cut list as follows

1) stop portal screwing with view
2) remove interconnection vents, purhapes widen a few to create visual and navigational variety
3) remove eye scanner switch for steel doors
4) adjust b/k to allow portal users a means to not get nailed by a guantlet of sentries
5) clean up the conveyor
6) keep fishy
7) more visual direction

I'll be looking at doing this for the weekend. seams pretty straight forward

~D