CTF FNB TDC 2374

CTF FNB TDC 2374

UT CTF - Medium, 6-12 players. Egypt Tech Alien Gothic Temple. Released Aug 2009.

In Feb 2006, UT mapper and NaliCIty reviewer Nahand held a Theme Design contest at Unreal Playground. Open to all mappers, the idea was to take a DM layout (by Nahand) and then modify the map for any theme you liked. I asked Nahand if I could do a CTF instead and he said okay, as long as the bases matched the DM layout.

So after releasing three ALPHA maps (SMALL, MEDIUM and LARGE) to explore the gameplay, I went with the MEDIUM layout since it was best for 6 vs 6. The theme was a hybrid of some gothic forms and Egypt-Tech ideas. I couldn't think of a map name so I called it "2374" - the year mentioned in the UT-99 intro city movie.

The map is a temple of sorts, in some futuristic alien city, somewhere in the UT-99 universe.

I never completed the map in time for the deadline, so I put it on the shelf for later and moved on to other projects. Every so often I would do a bit of work on it but the map never interested me sufficiently enough to get much attention, until lately.

During July 2009 I decided I'd get it done and managed to finish it in spite of having no free time to map! One thing I wanted to do was to keep the brush count to below 1000 brushes, to avoid map complexity, and give the map better framerates (it ended up at 1070 brushes).

The original volumetric lighting and FOG was also dropped for performance reasons, but it still looks okay even though it is less atmospheric as a result.

The map plays okay, but it is quite easy for a human to CAP, even with the bots at masterful. Playing with 8 vs 8 inhuman BOTs makes for a much harder match, but guns might be in short supply depending on where you spawn. I could have spent more time on the BOTs but I didn't want to bother since the extra effort could make little difference.

Could be a very different experience with people playing it. Many thanks to Bot_40 for Smart Alternate Path Actor and to ElyVision for the SkyCity (Sky13) Skybox images. For other credits please read the readme file. The music track is T.Y.R.A. for Team Vortex (NP-ty.umx) by Toxeen.