srb2kirbyo said:
Aww, That means Metal Star is out.
Can't you put it in the archives or as an unlockable stage?
Nope. The reason there's only 6 levels now is because we wanted to make sure that the levels we DID include were fun and balanced. Metal Star is not balanced, and the new match system wouldn't work very well at all in it.
Ice said:
I liked the old atmosphere Silver Cascade had. Sure the textures were repetitive, but the feel of the level was something almost serene and alien. Now it looks all hostile and whatnot.
I liked the original design too, but it had the issue of frequently being hard to see the edge of platforms and being unclear when doing the platforming of the distance you had to jump. These changes make it much easier to see in that regard.
Gemini Spark said:
All of these levels sound AWESOME, but O NOEX u took out all ties to Invader Zim! I take it SSNTails got outvoted in his quest to keep Zim's Base in there.
Actually, that doesn't matter to me since Zim's Base was a lame level, anyway. =_=
Well, AJ was never on a quest to keep it, I've been keeping it as long as possible because I liked the texture set. The reality is, though, the level isn't all that great, and there's no way I could port it to the new match system properly, so I dropped it.
There were a LOT of potential stages that didn't make it to SRB2ME. For everyone's information, here is why certain stages didn't make it, as these reasons will cause a lot of custom map ports to fail as well:
Metal Star: Bad base design, doesn't play particularly well in 1.09.4, never mind 2.0
Dual Fortress: Lots of layout issues, useless alternate path. Good bases though, but not worth completely changing the center area to make this work.
Iron Turret: This stage sucks. Why in hell would I port it?
Conveyor Conflict: Again, terrible stage to begin with.
Sapphire Falls CTF: I guess I COULD have ported this, but I prefer to keep the CTF rotation original, and this is as derivative as it comes.
Isolated Canyon: Undefendable bases are bad in the new system.
Hydro Plant: 4-way symmetry is very hard to symmetry break. The new match system doesn't work well with symmetrical match stages, hence this was dropped.
Starlit Warehouse: 4-way symmetry again.
Midnight Abyss: 4-way symmetry AND the map sucks.
Tree Ring: This is a potential possibility, but the massive stage layout is quite hard to place items on properly, as the 1.09.4 version attests to (everyone stays in the middle for the random box).
Zim's Base: This stage just doesn't have enough content. I'd consider it if I was making a level rotation designed for 1v1, though. It's actually pretty decent for 2-3 player games.
Airborne Temple: 4-way symmetry again. I considered doing a symmetry break, but decided it wouldn't be worth the effort considering.
In general, when porting your own stages, you're going to notice that the levels designed like Mario Kart battle arenas, with 4-way symmetry and small size, don't work well in 2.0 match. The levels with a more traditional FPS design work a lot better, with multiple rooms connected by passages, and no symmetry in the design so different powerups can be placed in each room and the player can figure out where he is by the room design, not the items in the room.