Tis the season to be doing map previews!

After hot_topic flopped in the ctf community I was puzzled. But I just chalked it up to the fact that we never had enough people to make the map work. So I went on and made a small pedestal map, but that was wholly unsatisfying. SO its back to the big maps this time, and this one is worthy of the title big!

I give you the Forsaken Crypt!

Two abandoned cathedrals sit across from each other in a mountain valley. These cathedrals have been built atop a massive underground crypt which connects them. Your team must race to the bottom of the crypt, grab the flag and take it back up 4 floors to your base. Once the flag is secured in your base you must gather your comrades to make a mad dash to the capture zone on the walkway between the two cathedrals, while the other team bombards you with explosives and sniper fire. If you work as a team victory will be yours, however leave the base to early with the flag and you will wind up doing all the work for the other team!

Now before I show the screens note that these are hammer screenshots, meaning that the lighting is minimal and poor and that this map is nowhere near finished. I'd say its roughly at 65% complete. Nothing in these pictures are final, and Im open and hoping for suggestions, or anything you think should belong in the map... enjoy.

Yeah where are they lol.

lol looks very nice, good job.

ahhhh. thank you for the nice comments.

@ corrosive: you sound like you do a bit of mapping yourself. never to fear, the buildings will become func_details all except for a few 'hidden' inner walls which will be used to block vis.
as far as the telefragging its not much of an issue in the ctf mod which is what the initial release of this map will be in.

However I do plan to do a dm release around the same time as the initial release and if necessary i can implement this system. I'm hoping though that 16 spawns per side is plenty since I am making this for the crypt/tomb. The only reason telefragging would occur is if somebody was afk, and even then they are the ones who get fragged i believe.

If im wrong or if you feel like it you can shoot me a pm with more info on this method since I've never actually used it, but i get the jist of it.

Ahh func_detail, problem solved.  But for the outside of the bases, func_detail may incorrectly light the building (since vvis skips lighting things tied to the entity func_detail).  That site i posted above explains it more concise and accurately than I can, its very resourceful.

I've been working on a ctf map for 4 months or so and have worked with hammer since release, but busy with work and the gf so its hard to get much done, have built lots of maps i just never released any , they're more of practice maps so i can fine tune my mapping skeelz to release a decent map with custom textures etc.

Looking forward to your map, textures and design looks great.

yeah i had some small problems like that with hot_topic, incorrect lighting on details. (since most of the map was outdoors). Ive got a workaround.

@ craig: mag will be on your way to the basement, in a rock2 style supply room, along with an xbow. I may put an rpg down there or up in the sniper are. What do you think?

Also im thinking about making a gate to the crypt that would require your team to get a key from the middle before you can even start capping the flag. but most players have enough trouble just figuring out how to play ctf so I may scrap it.

well it appears that I will have to cease production on this map . I have just become too busy to keep up with it. I have given away the map source to a friend, if he finishes it I will let you know. If anyone else wants the vmf file let me know.