Let’s look at Plat23.

This week, I’ll be doing a series of articles on our mapping efforts. As you may or may not recall, one of our beta goals is to have at least six maps to package with our game, and these articles are meant to highlight our maps and where they are currently at. The first four maps will likely be familiar to you if you’ve already played the game, and the latter two will be new to you. Either way, you can leave feedback on things you want to see addressed, or if you just like a map for whatever reason. Remember that once we reach beta, these will be the maps shipping with our game. We will no longer distribute Tremulous maps after reaching beta.

Mapper: EmperorJack
Version: beta 11
Status: released

If you’ve been playing since our first release, you might recall the earlier incarnations of Plat23. The map looked a lot different than it does now, with a low-resolution gray skybox and a chain-link fence surrounding a small outside area. While it was and will remain an ATCS substitute as a result of being symmetrical and possessing both an outside route and an inner hallway, what will always set apart Plat23 was that it was our first map to feature some of our new engine features in the form of normal mapping. You might take it for granted now that we have several other maps released and an abundance of models with pretty textures on them, but at the time it was revolutionary, as we had just branched off from Tremulous and we were used to very aged graphics. The map, in its own special way, symbolizes our progress as a project. It was a sign of things to come, and as our project has advanced with its graphical output, so has Plat23, which has elevated itself to being the premier map for clan and tournament matches.

For the most part, the map is in a finished state. There isn’t much to add at this point, barring any fixes that may spring up in the future or any new engine features that we get around to adding. However, our new gameplay changes might require some tweaking further down the line, and we have yet to see how the flying alien will interact with its exterior portion and the hallway. Regardless, you can consider it to be stable, unless there’s anything you feel that it’s lacking. What do you think of Plat23? Is there something you would alter on it? Or, do you like the map just the way it is?