Facing Worlds: League Edition
Public Release #1 · January 13, 2001

Installation:

Everyone

Copy CTF-Face-LE103.unr to your UnrealTournament\Maps directory

Server Admins

If you run your own UZ http redirects, copy CTF-Face-LE103 to your UZ download directory.

Concept:

The original Facing Worlds was by far the single most played Capture the Flag map for Unreal Tournament, so when Bonus Pack #4 was released, I eagerly loaded up Face-SE. Unfortunately, this version that was supposed to fix the short-comings of its parent, had some problems of its own: the once small BSP hole at midfield now extended halfway down the asteroid to blue base and the invisible wall near the blue rocket launcher was still there. Additionally, there were a few other problems: the teleporter exit in the blue redeemer room was not coded properly, strafing through the teleporter into the two sniper rooms would frequently land you back in the flag room and the skybox now rotated so quickly that it was difficult for me to enjoy all the nice new eye-candy.

In spite of its errors, Innox's plan was right on target. The additional location tags are of great benefit to team play. The redesigned teleporters and spawn points solved the problems of teleporter and spawn sniping. Additionally, replacing the ripper with a more powerful weapon gave some means for players to counter the rocket spammers and shockwhores who could otherwise dominate the map. In theory these are all good ideas, but the reality of gaming on the Internet leads to a different outcome.

The glow of the mid-air teleporter exits provides a place to train your cross-hairs -- especially on the top of the towers. Also at the top of the towers, players with poor Internet connections were sometimes hurled off in moments of lag and the inability for a Flag Carrier to momentarily defend themselves via an impact hammer block on the teleporter exit was a significant tactical change (even if it is easily countered by good teamwork). Lastly, with the wide-spread existence of multiplayer cheats such as aimbots, the inclusion of a rapid-fire, long-range hit-scan weapon like the minigun was a genuine threat to fair play in many of the games I witnessed. Even on "clean" servers, the minigun seemed to change the balance of the level so radically as to make Face into a Death Match with flags. After all, if players have access to possibly the most potent weapon (given the terrain) then defenders seemed to feel free to spam their way to a high scores without fear of dying. Many a game I played, I never ran out of ammunition because there were so many weapons lying at the feet of low pingers such as myself. Finally, in the event that I did run out of ammo, I then found myself chasing people with an Impact Hammer rather than at least having Enforcers to fall back on.

After hearing calls in the Online Gaming League for someone with mapping skills to fix the map, I decided to step forward and ask Cedric "Innox" Fiorentino for permission to modify his map. You are reading this file and playing Face-LE because he agreed.

Thanks Innox. :-)

--Larathiel the Death Elf

"Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational Bladesinger!"

Version History:

Below are the changes that differentiate Facing Worlds League Edition from Facing Worlds Special Edition:

1.03

• Improved the alignment of a few textures on the the front and top of both bases.

• Slightly altered the slope of the right ramp leading away from blue base and removed some unnecessary brushes for fewer visual artifacts.

1.02 (rc 3)

• To prevent players from dropping the flag through the back wall of the central teleporter alcove, the depth of the room has been shortened thus increasing the thickness of that wall. (Thanks to |DFB|WarezWarrior for pointing this out.)

• It was once possible for flag carriers to jump off the asteroid at certain point and hide on invisible surfaces near the center and outside (thanks [DS]Ocyrus). In case any such BSP errors exist, a vacuum zone has been added and follows the contour of the asteroid's walkways at approximately 10 feet below the surface. This has the added benefit of allowing any player who falls of the asteroid to respawn about one second faster.

1.01 (rc 2)

• To my understanding, the original asteroid was made in a 3D program other than UnrealEd and then imported. While this was a good way to achieve interesting terrain, any non-level surfaces were highly subject to creating invisible walls. Since fixing one error always resulted in at least that many appearing, I totally recreated the 2 ramps using brushes native to UnrealEd. The result? No more BSP errors!

1.00 (rc 1)

• The invisible wall by the blue rocket launcher is now gone; flags and weaponry can no longer get stuck in there without hope of being recovered.

• Blue's redeemer room teleporter exits now function properly.

• Since the teleporter exits in the sniper rooms face the opposite direction of the entrances, the forward velocity of a character in the flag room was applied as reverse velocity when appearing on the other side. This has now been compensated for so that characters who strafe through will not accidentally drift back into the flag room. (Thanks to [K]FlyingMonkey for finding this error.)

• A glow is no longer associated with the mid-air teleporter exits. This prevents people from sniping the exits as easily.

• There is now only a single teleporter exit atop each base. This prevents both teleporter sniping and players falling off the top when lagged. True players can hammer block the top, but with only 1/3 the number of spots to employ this trick, it is now much easier to counter and therefore less effective (assuming that players understand the concept of teamwork). Additionally, Eavy Unreal is developing a league mutator that may provide an even better solution to piston camping!

• Misaligned textures inside the blue flag room and atop the blue tower have been lined up more precisely.

• Rate of skybox rotation has been lowered to that of the original Facing Worlds (no more tummy-aches). ;-)

• Location ids atop and behind towers have been tweaked for more reliable operation. Additional location ids have been added at the superhealth (Asteroid Superhealth) and in the front of each base (Red/ Blue Front).

• No more chasing people across the asteroid with your impact hammer. The minigun has been replaced by the pulse gun. Playtesting revealed that this provided a much more balanced game and lessened the severity of aimbots -- you can no longer mini-snipe players at midfield unless you step part-way out the front door of your base. From the feedback I received, the pulse gun was regarded as the best "no-ammo" weapon by a margin of 2 to 1.

• L33t custom screenshot graphic for the Server Browser. :-)

Acknowledgments:

I would like to thank:

• Epic, for not only making such a great game as Unreal Tournament, but also for continuing to keep giving us cool, free add-ons like the Bonus Packs. That's awesome!

• Innox, for giving me permission to change the map.

• ViperDan and everyone in the OGL, who helped me with bug-testing this map and provided valuable feedback.

• Redbeard from Capture, his many month of prior tutelage in UnrealEd gave me the skills to tackle this project.

• The guys on the UT Server Admin list, for providing me with the contacts that I needed to make for this and other upcoming projects.

• All my old clan mates from {xDxEx}: The XXX Death Elves, good luck where ever fortune may lead you. This map's for you. :-)

• Anyone else I may have forgotten who helped me out or even stood up for me. "The greatest thing you ever can do now is trade a smile with someone who's blue now." -- Led Zeppelin, "Friends"

Copyrights / Permissions:

Revisions included in Facing Worlds League Edition are the work of Larathiel, performed under permission obtained from Innox. Level designers should ask Innox for permission to use particular structures from this level.

You are NOT allowed to commercially exploit this level, i.e. put it on a CD or any other electronic medium that is sold for money without the explicit permission of the author! You MAY distribute this level through any electronic network (Internet, FIDO, local BBS etc.), provided you include this file with the map.

UNREAL (c)1998 Epic Megagames, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Distributed by GT Interactive Software, Inc. under license. UNREAL and the UNREAL logo are registered trademarks of Epic Megagames, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are properties of their respective owners.