AS FNB Temple Of Dragons

AS FNB Temple Of Dragons

UT ASSAULT - Large, 5 Objectives, 8 - 16 players.

When earth exploration teams discovered the ancient civilizations of planet Sigma Epsilon 4, colonization soon followed - and with it Liandri Corporation.

Wherever humans settle in the cosmos, there is the tournament. In the valley of DRAK'D'GKOR stand several ancient temples built by alien warrior races. Four of the temples have been converted into arenas by Liandri, where you must do battle. Be wary gladiators, the humans have committed a sacrilidge, and the ancients will have your blood for it...

Temple Of Dragons was originally intended was to be the last (and most challenging) of a series of four Ancient Alien Temple maps set in the same locale.

The first map of the series was FNB-Ring-Of-Stones, was actually released and indicated the story setup for the locale, but unfortunately, the other three maps didn't follow for one reason or another (oh damn you FnB). They do exist, but over time the series "concept" was abandoned.

TOD has had my attention on and off for years, and has evolved quite a bit from it's original design. It became more detailed and now uses a lot of WOT textures as well as the old UT Ancient stuff. It has a similar feel to RoS except the setting is earlier in the day so it is brighter in the outside areas and there is shadow work throughout the map. Polys get high in a few areas as well, but are not crazy. That said, FrameRate is decent overall.

For the most part, the problems that plagued this map during it's long existance have been irradicated mainly because I became much better at brushing and fixng BSP bugs after 2002 when the original map was started (see the editor image below).

Over time, some areas were simplified and others made a bit more detailed. Since 2005, I have been picking away at little bits of it (actually the Assault version) and low and behold it's looking like it's almost there.

All I really need to do now is come up with some kind of ending to the final objective (right now I have just a still-frame Quake Cam). I'd also like to add more ambient elements, hopefully with meshes rather than BSP, because adding more brushes now will likely bring BSP issues like HOMs or collision anomalies. The map plays really well right now, so adding more detail may actually hurt the map rather enhance it - I don't high detail as absolutely necessary any longer - especially if adding lots of eye-candy compromises the build or the maps performance when loaded up with BOTs or players.

The cool thing about the TOD design is that it is quite adaptable (with minimal changes) for several UT gametypes: DM, DOM, AS and now Monster Hunt. What makes this possible is the fact the has six very different gameplay areas which are formed into a cross (i.e. N-S-E-W and a middle). Multiple warpzones connect the areas in an end-to-end and end-to-sides manner. The result is quick movement between all areas making it ideal for DM and DOM, while the removal of certain warpzone "pathes" tailor the map flow for more linear Assault and Monster Hunt.

CTF is unfortunately a bit more tricky. I did play with different symetrical CTF layouts, where I had the middle plus each of the four "arenas" duped as bases (so that's four test maps, lol). None of the CTF layouts were all that great - well one was okay, but not too fantastic. I'll look again at CTF that once the AS and other versions are completed. I may even try it as a CTF4 map, we'll see how it goes.