Old / new cards

[RDL_Vitos]

More recently again looked through old screenshots from news about the first beta and earlier.

And such I has seen. What beautiful maps. Some of them are in game now, but are very strongly altered, and some are not present and till today.

It would be desirable to know:
Whether maps will be released::

a) ToA_Ivorytower


b)SA_Tropic


c)ToA_ColdSteel

+ Too can be ColdSteel


d)PalaceGates



Whether the changed versions of old maps will be let out, such as they looked on pictures, and they looked very much, very beautifully, can even is better than new versions. For example here screenshots old (I think) versions of some maps:
1.I think Extremity ( more open territories )


2.Inferno ( more open territories )


3.Sandblasted with palms and water



It would be very interesting to play on these cards, for a change. After all it to be pleasant to much TSA_Sandblasted for example, and here there will be an alternative replacement and simultaneously similarity provides popularity of a map

[Spooky]

Huh, do want

[RDL_Vitos]

Me:more than this it was pleasant to me old extremities

[attachment deleted by admin]

[RDL_Vitos]

There were big changes as I suspect to the Marshes map before it has reached release

Also I, and not only me very much liked the old version with its weather conditions and other buildings

[RDL_Vitos]

Also what it for a map ?

I certainly understand that I set too many questions, but I want to know!

[RDL_Vitos]

Why there is no this building. Looks monumentally

[Vlaad]

Vitos, many of created content is early mwll alpha uses crysis base structures or structures witch have been poorly optimized. Same goes for the maps: uncompleted, test maps and so on.

[Aidan]

Vitos,

I can provide some history on some of these maps. Although remember I have not been on the MWLL Dev team for a long while.

ToA_IvoryTower - This map was originally done by Mjolinor (sp?). He was a former MWLL Dev but has since moved on to other pursuits. As you can see this map was made back when there was a ToA game mode. This no longer exists. Nevertheless, this map was a good example of a Southwestern USA desert environment.

ToA_ColdSteel - The author of this map is Death_Grin. A former MWLL Dev and maybe a current MWLL Dev, as I hear he may have returned to contribute to the MWLL project, once again. This was/is a very ambitious map undertaking by Death_Grin. This was primarily an urban map and really good looking urban map it was! But alas the performance on the map was not good. The team, including Death_Grin, were all learning how to optimize map assets. The creation of very efficient 3D game models was not quite up to par at the time this map was designed.

Palace Gates - I was the original author of this re-imagined map. This map comes from the MechWarrior MW4 series created by FASA Studios. When I was on the team, the map was coming along but higher priorities prevented the development of good 3D in-game models for Palace Gates. The last time I spoke to KingLEER about this map, he said the team did not have a good set of in-game assets and that most likely the map would not be created.

Many of the MWLL Map designers were not interested in re-imagining a map from a previous game. They were more interested in creating a new map. Remember many of the MWLL Devs join the team to gain experience so they can go on to work in the video games industry and actually get paid money for their work.

[RDL_Vitos]

I know about some transitions so to say in a developers team. But who prevents to let out a map in an individual order, for example.



And likely old versions of maps have still remained, at least the bases: landscape, structures and buildings should remain with developers likely all the same. And why them not to optimize and not to add in game, for a change.

I simply speak that I see old maps were very much, very beautiful

[Aidan]

And likely old versions of maps have still remained, at least the bases: landscape, structures and buildings should remain with developers likely all the same. And why them not to optimize and not to add in game, for a change.

For an answer to this question, I would refer you to (Wilson). I believe he is still the leader for the MWLL Level Design group.

[Sesambrot]

Well, some of those old maps are still lying around in the Dev-build, but most of them need tremendous amounts of fixing (eg. repathing materials replacing objects) others are completely broken, and older versions of say inferno, extremity or sandblasted were actually replaced by their current ones. these files don't exist anymore.

Unfortunately for us, very very few of the assets and buildings used on those maps and screenshots have survived until today.
I don't know why they weren't kept to be optimized at some point (I mean we kept all those friggin' unfinished/broken maps), but instead they were just deleted right away, which leaves us at a point where we have hardly enough building assets.

I better stop here, before I start complaining. I don't understand the decision to completely remove those assets but for the maps there usually was a reason not to release them, they may look pretty but still play like crap.

[KingLeerUK]

We have most of the maps mentioned above in the archived dev build but as has already been said they would require a LOT of work to bring them up to standards.  Some of the maps linked are simply too small (longinus_ambush_01a.jpg is actually TSA_Galuzza which is tiny) or are whitebox wishful thinking (ToA Coldsteel) and don't actually have any usable assets on them.  The "buildings" shots listed are also either textured solids or really poorly performing assets that would be just as much work to bring up to standards, if not more than simply starting over.
 
Some of these early maps also have assets for which we cannot determine the exact provenience and therefore we cannot use them in officially released MWLL maps.
 
(loginus-atlas-comparison.jpg) is actually ToA_Scorched which is a map that I personally enjoyed playing on but was abandoned due to being too much like Extremity and the underlying game mode being heavily flawed.  It also had a lot of assets on it that performed poorly.  Might come back one day but no plans right now and it isn't my call, I defer to Wilson in this matter.
 
What the MWLL team really needs, and I mean REALLY BADLY, is a sub-team of dedicated Environmental Artists that can work quickly to model buildings, props, rocks, walls, vegetation, bridges, antenna arrays, rubble piles, debris fields, skyscrapers and shacks to CryEngine2 game-ready standards.  All too often the artists that come knocking at our door for such a position have the best intentions, but once onboarded prefer the spotlight of the hero assets like 'Mechs and aerospace.  The harsh truth is that MWLL will not ever have an urban combat map unless we can fill some art positions on the team with environmental artists.  Crysis simply doesn't have stock assets that are suitable for a MW/BT urban theme and we cannot "borrow" assets for our project from other sources and still be considered a total conversion.

[(Wilson)]

REALLY BADLY, is a sub-team of dedicated Environmental Artists[/b]

Very Very Very badly... lol
 
We have a ton of great concept maps and maps that demonstrate various environment types, but lacking the assets to be able to finish them properly means we cant release them... as has been mentioned above, there are various factors contributing to that including performance, quality and licensing, but mainly, its a lack of artists with the knowledge to be able to create cryengine quality game-ready assets for us, specifically knowledge of the entire pipeline from a concept and blockin thru to exported game-ready asset...

[RDL_Vitos]

May be some maps can be released with "cry" a file and it will be finished by free artists.

[Defender]

We're all free artists. If the want to work on official maps, they can join the team.
If they don't want to be dedicated developers, they can be contributors.
We never release our Cry files, for finished or unfinished maps.