mrtf_Chaoticlevels.wad

[Chaotic Chao]

This is Chaotic Levels, a multiplayer level pack for all to enjoy!

Where to begin...

How about the "updates" part.

Release 1: Very first release with 4 match levels and two race levels.
Release 2: Some unecessary music was removed to make the file smaller.
Release 3: Big changes, such as: bugfix, fixing all the known bugs, and adding two more levels(Ice Hill Zone and Sandy Ruins Zone). MAJOR credit to Metal Fighter for making Sandy Ruins.
Release 4: My birthday on this release day! Anyway I fixed the teleporters in IHZ and made some very, very minor tweaks to KCZ.
Release 5: Added Deep Jungle and Emerald Ocean added!

END releases part.
Now it's time for the "Zone listing". NOTE: Any map not made by me will be noted as such.

Match
-Strange Base Zone: A small, strange base with flowers?
-Hot Cave Zone: In all seriousness, a very hot cave.
-Knuckle Castle Zone: Knuckles's castle built for him and match mode.
-Death Town Zone: A very dangerous town. Well, at least on the rooftops.
-Deep Jungle Zone: One really large tree is a neighbor to smaller ones on the other side.

Race___________________________________________________
-Badnick Factory Zone: Badnicks are built and stored here.
-Simple Track Zone: "Sonic Circuit gone wrong" ~a guy who's username I forgot.
-Ice Hill Zone: From outside to in this place is cold...
-Emerald Ocean Zone- Run along this ocean and win the race, but don't drown. If that happens, consider yourself the last place guy.

CTF____________________________________________________
Sandy Ruins Zone(Metal Fighter): A well built ruin so well built, most of it is still standing!

End of Zone listing

Screenshots!

KCZ

SBZ

HCZ...the light is actually lighter than this.=p

DTZ

BFZ

STZ

IHZ

SRZ

New section: Things that I and others made better.
From Release 1-2: File size SO much smaller that it can now be downloaded from a server.
From Release 2-3: Added Ice Hill, and Metal Fighter made Sandy Ruins. He is so helpful. ^_^ Also, many bugfixes and tweaks...
From Release 3-4: IHZ is actually playable now.
a)Hot Cave is A LOT lighter now, rendering Hide and Seek possible.
b)In Knuckle Castle Zone, there are no longer holes in the castle cieling.
c)The crusher in Badnick Factory actually is a threat(Tails can barely make it, provided he does NOT stop running or slow down AT ALL.
From Release 4-5
Added two more levels and renamed it to mrtf_Chaoticlevels.

END of Screenshots! And everything else!
Remember, critisize a little, but say at least ONE thing nice.
Credit: Me, for making it, PHCC, for making some textures for me, and those who joined my test netgames.

If you wanna help, PM me. I probably won't make any CTF levels due to my inexperirence, so help is always accepted.

 

[Chaotic Chao]

Anyway, forgot the "known bugs" section.

BUG 1: In KCZ, in the castle, nearly every sector causes a hole to appear on the cieling. Will be easily fixed.
BUG 2: Not really a bug, but there's no colormap in the little pool in SBZ. I'll add it.
BUG 3: Really minor, in BFZ, in one of the places where badnicks are kept, I think 2 buzzers are stuck.
BUG 4: Also in BFZ, not much of a bug, really, the crusher goes WAY too slow to be any sort of threat.
BUG 5: In KCZ, The outer wall of the castle has a texture that wraps the sky, or whatever. Looks wierd, should be easy to see.
BUG 6: There's a secret in HCZ... a spring propels you all the way to another area, for whatever reason. There's a 1up, for a little verification.

That's it.
-EDIT-
ALL fixed in Release 3, except for the spring propel thing, and the pool in SBZ. Also, bug 3 will be fixed, since I'm going to remove the buzzers.

 

[Torgo]

Two minor bugs I fixed for you. The level pack is supposed to be named mrt_Chaoticlevels.wad, not mtr_Chaoticlevels.wad.

I also fixed your level header so it doesn't go to the race levels.

There a lot of things that could be fixed in this map, but I am too tired to remember them all at this moment.

 

[Azure]

Hurray. There is one thing though. I gave you a link to the fixed version of Sandy Ruins. It has level picture and all that. You should re download it from the link and add it onto the level pack. The link should be in one of your private messages.

 

[ThunderNova]

The levels were okay, but they were all TOO DAMN SMALL.

 

[Azure]

Usually when I make bigger maps the maps get more graphical glitches so I decided to make a small one.

 

[Chaotic Chao]

Hurray. There is one thing though. I gave you a link to the fixed version of Sandy Ruins. It has level picture and all that. You should re download it from the link and add it onto the level pack. The link should be in one of your private messages.

I had to retake the pic, because It ws removed when I added the map to the wad. And I did add the fixed version...I think. I was REALLY unorganized that day, so...
More bugs!
A: The buzzers are still stuck after all...
B: In Ice Hill, the teleporter will only telport a player once.
C: The spring propel glitch thing hasn't been fixed either.
D: My fault, Sandy Ruins doesn't have a screenshot.
Will be fixed in release 4.

 

[ThunderNova]

Usually when I make bigger maps the maps get more graphical glitches so I decided to make a small one.

Not your map, the ones Chaotic Chao made. They all felt crowded and tiny. Knuckles' Castle Zone was the smallest match map I have ever seen. I really think you should add a few more rooms.

 

[Chaotic Chao]

It's supposed to be small. I had to make it so there were lots of cover, and KCZ had the most.
Most of levels are supposed to be small, in fact. I rush things sometimes, for one thing, and the other is that I have more maps to focus on than just KCZ and SBZ all the time.

 

[sphere]

Not your map, the ones Chaotic Chao made. They all felt crowded and tiny. Knuckles' Castle Zone was the smallest match map I have ever seen. I really think you should add a few more rooms.

It's supposed to be small. I had to make it so there were lots of cover, and KCZ had the most.
Most of levels are supposed to be small, in fact. I rush things sometimes, for one thing, and the other is that I have more maps to focus on than just KCZ and SBZ all the time.

Let me reply to this by quoting myself:

Protip: If people say there's something wrong with your sprites/character/level/whatever, fix it instead of making excuses for it.

Anyways, I agree with ThunderNova there, all the levels were too small. However, I also thought they were really horrible.
I'll just give some comments per map:

Strange Base - 0/10
Honestly, this stage looks like you didn't even try to make a playable stage, and include this just to have more levels. Anyways, this map looks horrible, with clashing themes and textures all over the place, horrible item placement, and gameplay similar to Meadow Match, but ten times worse. And just to clarify, I don't like Meadow Match at all.

Hot Cave - 1/10
Okay, this stage has at least some effort put into it, and that already makes it better than the previous map. However, the current is pointless, and it leads to a rather boring area, with ugly texturing and atrocious item placement. It wasn't absolutely horrible, but then I noticed that there were 2 Grenade Panels, and nothing else (aside from some rings). Then I looked back, and found the other part of the level.
The other area is way too maze-like, has way too many of the important items and it doesn't connect to the Grenade Room in any way whatsoever. This makes it nearly impossible to navigate, combined with the lack of textures and things to tell rooms apart.

Knuckle Castle - 0/10
It's cramped, it looks ugly, there are too many rings... I just can't say anything positive about this map.

Death Town - 0/10
This stage is unplayable under heavy lag, due to being a level built above a bottomless pit. All platforms are way too small, most springs send you into the death pit if you're not careful, the ceiling is too low...
Again, there's nothing positive to say about this map.

Badnick Factory - 1/10
At least you know how to do linedef executors, and this stage didn't look atrocious, actually. However, the spring part at the start is annoying under heavy lag, the rings are stupidly placed, and most of the course is just flat ground, with barely any vertical variation. It also needs to be more interesting than just one giant circle with some walls in the middle. And what kind of factory puts their products between huge glass walls? And the turrets hurt my ears, only place one of them.

Simple Track - ahahahahahahah/10
I really can't review this stage seriously, it's just that funny and obviously made in a few minutes.

Ice Hill - 1/10
Well, the usage of textures isn't atrocious, but just like Badnick Factory, it's mostly flat, aside from some springs. However, the parts that are not flat are unplayable under heavy lag. At least you know how to do teleporters and friction, even though the teleporters weren't really needed if you had just sketched a good layout that's not just two circles.

Sandy Ruins - 5/10
Wait what, where did this stage come from? That being said, this is far better than any of the other stages, because it has decent item placement and a decent layout. The graphics were not that good though, vary it up a bit with some differently colored sand textures. You might also want to add some more ammo, remove some team rings/monitors and add some WRMs. Otherwise, I rather enjoyed this stage.

Chaotic Chao, please read these two articles, it will really help make your maps improve if you follow all the rules:
http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/Level_Design_101:_Match_and_Capture_the_Flag
http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/Level_Design_101:_Circuit

And please, test your stages in netgames before releasing them! I didn't when I made Project: Sphere, and the stages in there sucked as a result. After that, I started looking at good maps to see what they did right, and tried to do the same things in my maps, while not copying the other stages. And of course, I tested the maps in netgames, and listened to the criticism of the people who played it. My maps gradually became better, and now I'm considered one of the best mappers in this community.

 

[Chaotic Chao]

Let me reply to this by quoting myself:

Anyways, I agree with ThunderNova there, all the levels were too small. However, I also thought they were really horrible.
I'll just give some comments per map:

Strange Base - 0/10
Honestly, this stage looks like you didn't even try to make a playable stage, and include this just to have more levels. Anyways, this map looks horrible, with clashing themes and textures all over the place, horrible item placement, and gameplay similar to Meadow Match, but ten times worse. And just to clarify, I don't like Meadow Match at all.

Hot Cave - 1/10
Okay, this stage has at least some effort put into it, and that already makes it better than the previous map. However, the current is pointless, and it leads to a rather boring area, with ugly texturing and atrocious item placement. It wasn't absolutely horrible, but then I noticed that there were 2 Grenade Panels, and nothing else (aside from some rings). Then I looked back, and found the other part of the level.
The other area is way too maze-like, has way too many of the important items and it doesn't connect to the Grenade Room in any way whatsoever. This makes it nearly impossible to navigate, combined with the lack of textures and things to tell rooms apart.

Knuckle Castle - 0/10
It's cramped, it looks ugly, there are too many rings... I just can't say anything positive about this map.

Death Town - 0/10
This stage is unplayable under heavy lag, due to being a level built above a bottomless pit. All platforms are way too small, most springs send you into the death pit if you're not careful, the ceiling is too low...
Again, there's nothing positive to say about this map.

Badnick Factory - 1/10
At least you know how to do linedef executors, and this stage didn't look atrocious, actually. However, the spring part at the start is annoying under heavy lag, the rings are stupidly placed, and most of the course is just flat ground, with barely any vertical variation. It also needs to be more interesting than just one giant circle with some walls in the middle. And what kind of factory puts their products between huge glass walls? And the turrets hurt my ears, only place one of them.

Simple Track - ahahahahahahah/10
I really can't review this stage seriously, it's just that funny and obviously made in a few minutes.

Ice Hill - 1/10
Well, the usage of textures isn't atrocious, but just like Badnick Factory, it's mostly flat, aside from some springs. However, the parts that are not flat are unplayable under heavy lag. At least you know how to do teleporters and friction, even though the teleporters weren't really needed if you had just sketched a good layout that's not just two circles.

Sandy Ruins - 5/10
Wait what, where did this stage come from? That being said, this is far better than any of the other stages, because it has decent item placement and a decent layout. The graphics were not that good though, vary it up a bit with some differently colored sand textures. You might also want to add some more ammo, remove some team rings/monitors and add some WRMs. Otherwise, I rather enjoyed this stage.

Chaotic Chao, please read these two articles, it will really help make your maps improve if you follow all the rules:
http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/Level_Design_101:_Match_and_Capture_the_Flag
http://wiki.srb2.org/wiki/Level_Design_101:_Circuit

And please, test your stages in netgames before releasing them! I didn't when I made Project: Sphere, and the stages in there sucked as a result. After that, I started looking at good maps to see what they did right, and tried to do the same things in my maps, while not copying the other stages. And of course, I tested the maps in netgames, and listened to the criticism of the people who played it. My maps gradually became better, and now I'm considered one of the best mappers in this community.

My ratings and replies.

Strange Base: First Zone (first ever made and first in the pack). Don't like it? Too bad. XD I'd give it a 5. It's better than the symmetrical stage I was gonna have lol.
Hot Cave: I put A LOT more effort in this map than you're giving me credit for. I had to change the brightness like 3 times. Some pleople liked it, some didn't. But nobody, me included, really enjoyed Hns here lol. Really hard. Anyway a lot of people use the water slide. No real use. So? There's also that big area after it. Pretty large. Finally, you're supposed to find your enemy here. Mazes are bad in SP terms, but not match. It's hardly mazelike anyway. And the only reason there's a lack of texturing is because I needed similar textures for a cave. Can you picture a cave with multi-colored walls in real life? Hmmm... 5.5
Knuckle Castle: It was a challenge to make, and I do still think there may be flaws... Anyway it's a pretty well balanced map... lots of room in some areas, less room in others. It all depends on the player I guess. What you're calling ugly must be mainly the outside... Well I didn't think so. I tried texture variating... apparantly you either call it ugly or not enough. Hard to please people. Not gonna please if it's too hard. There are also a lot of rings because it's easy to get shot here. 4.5
Death Town: Well, obviously you don't like Nimbus Ruins, Arieal Garden (spell check?), or anything else with large death pits, huh? It doesn't lag much. I've played it. A lot. In fact, this is one of the much better liked levels. Also the cieling is NOT too low. One more thing... a lot has to do with tricky jumping. 6
Badnick Factory: I don't see why yo dislike this level. It's pretty fun. The first part... it's actually VERY easy. Even under lag. Face it: people tend to rush. I made it espescially for that. There are even item boxes past there for luck. Maybe if the rusher gets lucky he'll teleport with someone who got through the beggining. Another thing about the glass walls... Hmm, well I guess you want me to but badnicks out everwhere in a race level. No? DIDN'T THINK SO. 7
Simple Track: This level is supposed to be funny. HA. Sonic clearly dominates here. I ran out of ideas so I made this. I wasn't being serious. however, if Sonic thoks wrong, he could end up dying... 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7.
Ice Hill: I worked harder on this than other maps... anyway you say flat is boring, not flat is lagging. I hate it when people give me 2 controdicting sides. Anyway, there's that hole at the beggining...not flat, but laggy? Seriously? There's even a spring to get you out and if you land right you might be able to get ahead. And I seriously doubt you're counting the water and fof parts. for the rating... I don't know, 5?
Sandy Ruins is Metal Fighters'.
And now you ask me to read those 2 things, which I, by the way, won't.

Although people may disagree with me on this subject, I like what I like and no amount of words will change what I think should stay. Vice Versa too.

And now you ask me to test my stages in netgames!?!?!?? What kind of idiot do you think I am!? I always do that! nd you think my maps are so bad, that you think I didnt.

Whew...
That's all.
*faints*

---------- Post added at 02:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:46 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Sepharallic
Protip: If people say there's something wrong with your sprites/character/level/whatever, fix it instead of making excuses for it.

I almost COMPLETELY disagree.
When people mention glitches in a map, I go fix the map.
When they say, "Oh my gosh this part is terrible redo everything about it." I don't listen.
And you think I'm making excuses. That ticked me off more than anything else in that post. *sigh*
Well at least I don't cuss...

 

[ThunderNova]

Okay, here are some things I like to say before this beomces a flame war.
Maybe I was a little blunt. I didn't mean to sound harsh, but they are just really small. Take Knuckle Castle Zone for example. One room can barely fit four people. That shouldn't be. It looks like it was a wip map. And about the no likng "Nimbus Ruins" or "Neo Arial Garden". I have a quote that explains why he said that, let me find it. Ah to hell with it. The reason people don't like levels over death pits in match is because thyey ruin the gameplay. Every time you fall, you lose fifty points. That doesn't happen in Nimbus Ruins, because the point of that mode isn't to score points; it's for capturing the flag; Therefore, losing points won't affect the game at all. Yes, sometimes people lose the flag because of falling or getting railed off. That happens. But when you look, most other people are falling off too. If that happens in Match, it would basically be endless; you could lose all the points you earned because of lag. That would completely ruin the flow of the game, and we don't want that happening.

 

[Chaotic Chao]

It really wasn't you at all, Thunder... I know my maps are small. I just wanted to emphsize that I wasn't planning to change them. You thought they were small. Already known. He thought they were small and horrible. Useless info.

 

[ThunderNova]

I edited my post after you said that; please read it.

 

[Chaotic Chao]

You know, I did say the level hardly lagged. I tested it on netgames. Besides, it's nevr fun to fall into a death pit, no matter the mode. The rules are up to the player not the level. So I doubt Sepherallic rated that one map fairly...

If he likes point limits, that must be what he rated it based on.

 

[ThunderNova]

Just because it didn't lag when you played it doesn't mean it won't when other people do. And the point I'm trying to get across is that either make the level non-bottomless pit, or remove it entirely; the level pack is worse with it.

 

[MascaraSnake]

Don't like it? Too bad.

Oh wow... Are you serious? With that attitude, you might as well not release any maps at all, because you won't improve if you shoot down feedback. As Spherallic said, if something's wrong, fix it, and don't make bullshit excuses and justifications for it.

Hot Cave: I put A LOT more effort in this map than you're giving me credit for. I had to change the brightness like 3 times.

Changing the light level three times doesn't sound like effort to me.

Anyway a lot of people use the water slide. No real use. So?

If there's no use to it, why is it there?

Finally, you're supposed to find your enemy here. Mazes are bad in SP terms, but not match.

That's just wrong as a statement. I should never search for my opponent in Match.

And the only reason there's a lack of texturing is because I needed similar textures for a cave. Can you picture a cave with multi-colored walls in real life? Hmmm...

If you hit limitations like that, get creative. There are always ways to make things look good in this game, even if you might have to think a bit.

Anyway it's a pretty well balanced map... lots of room in some areas, less room in others. It all depends on the player I guess.

There's a lot more to balance than making one spot cramped and another open.

What you're calling ugly must be mainly the outside... Well I didn't think so. I tried texture variating... apparantly you either call it ugly or not enough. Hard to please people. Not gonna please if it's too hard.

Ahahaha oh wow. If you're not gonna please people because it's too hard, stop wasting your time by making maps, seriously. The texturing is both ugly and not enough, and it's entirely possible to make good-looking castle maps. But whatever you do, don't just refuse to listen to criticism that is obviously accurate.

Death Town: Well, obviously you don't like Nimbus Ruins, Arieal Garden (spell check?), or anything else with large death pits, huh? It doesn't lag much. I've played it. A lot. In fact, this is one of the much better liked levels. Also the cieling is NOT too low. One more thing... a lot has to do with tricky jumping. 6

Difficult jumps don't work in Match because you get penalty for each death. That said, I know for a fact that Spherallic likes Nimbus Ruins.

Badnick Factory: I don't see why yo dislike this level. It's pretty fun.

Read his post again. He gave reasons.

Another thing about the glass walls... Hmm, well I guess you want me to but badnicks out everwhere in a race level. No? DIDN'T THINK SO. 7

You could have... like, no badniks at all?

Simple Track: This level is supposed to be funny. HA. Sonic clearly dominates here. I ran out of ideas so I made this. I wasn't being serious. however, if Sonic thoks wrong, he could end up dying... 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7.

If you admit it's a joke, why a 7? it's not a clever joke.

Ice Hill: I worked harder on this than other maps... anyway you say flat is boring, not flat is lagging. I hate it when people give me 2 controdicting sides.

Race requires delicate balance. Too flat and it becomes a thokfest, too many difficult jumps and it's flow-breaking. You happen to switch between both extremes here.

And now you ask me to read those 2 things, which I, by the way, won't.

Yeah, just ignore crucial pieces of advice for no reason at all and continue making abysmal maps. Right.

Although people may disagree with me on this subject, I like what I like and no amount of words will change what I think should stay.

Then stop releasing your levels to the public.

And now you ask me to test my stages in netgames!?!?!?? What kind of idiot do you think I am!? I always do that! nd you think my maps are so bad, that you think I didnt.

If you did test them in netgames and didn't find all these obvious flaws, you have obviously not fully understood the gametypes of Match and Race yet. Again, reading the articles Spherallic linked would help.

...Okay, I'm gonna be blunt here: You're making a complete idiot out of yourself with this. Your maps are quite evidently bad, but you stubbornly refuse to admit it and criticize the feedback people give you. If you continue like this, you won't improve as a mapper and this community will probably rather quickly start to dislike your attitude.

EDIT: Making this post took a while, so several replies are now in-between my post and the one it refers to. Eh, I hope it still is somewhat understandable.

EDIT2:

I almost COMPLETELY disagree.
When people mention glitches in a map, I go fix the map.
When they say, "Oh my gosh this part is terrible redo everything about it." I don't listen.
And you think I'm making excuses. That ticked me off more than anything else in that post. *sigh*
Well at least I don't cuss...

Okay, if somebody mentions an easy-to-fix glitch, you go fix it, but the moment they criticize something more fundamentally, you refuse to listen? Ever noticed that all of Spherallic's complaints are valid, and that those parts he criticized are bad? It might take effort to fix them, but if you are too lazy or arrogant to actually improve your maps, don't make any. You're saving us all the trouble.

 

[BlazingPhoenix]

And now you ask me to read those 2 things, which I, by the way, won't.

You will never make a good map if you don't.

 

[Azure]

We all start somewhere. It is good to get feedback from people. That way you know what to improve on the next time. I've made other ctf maps in the past (most of them not even released on the message board) and I could say that most of them were just horrible especially my first one. As time goes on you learn more and more. I still have lots to learn before I release a very good map on the srb2 message board.

 

[MascaraSnake]

I still have lots to learn before I release one of my maps on the srb2 message board.

But uh, you kinda did when you let Chaotic Chao put your map in his pack...