User:Tkellaway/L4D Progress

Project Status

• Name: Hell Raised
• Type: Coop
• Chapters: 1
• Status:

• Chapter 1, City - Planning: 050% - Construction: 010% - Entities: 020% - Beautification: 010%

Project Blog

April 20, 2009

The Pawn Shop

I've given up on pier pressure. I can always return to it, but I want to work on a map that's original and never seen before. Hell Raised is based in a city, where the players must stick together to survive. I'm unclear on what the objectives are at the moment, but I'm hoping to make the map non-linear and open for players to explore. This makes the map similar to an rp map in design. I chose this type of map, based on something I heard in the developer's commentary about how l4d was originaly going to have larger, more open maps for players to explore. They changed their minds to make more linear maps, so that they could focus on adding detail. I have a bit more time on my hands than them.

All that I'm certain of at the moment is that I want the players to have to get to the top of a large skyscraper in the centre of the map to escape by helicopter. If possible, I will make more than one tower with more than one helicopter. This will stop players from just going up the skyscraper at the start and waiting up there for the whole game.

Goodies will be hidden all over the map, so that player have to explore. I will also add optional objectives that benefit you in some way. For example, you may find a radio that speeds up the helicopter. Some objectives will cause more zombies to spawn, whilst giving the players better weapons. For example, breaking into a gun store will set off an alarm, but allow access to all weapons.

The way that zombies will spawn is that players will have two minutes to explore the map, followed by about five minutes of panic event. After the panic event is over, players will have more time to explore and the process will repeat. This means that players will be camping when a panic event is triggered, but moving when they have time to explore - making it more likely that they trigger a panic event (e.g. by breaking into the gun store) when there isn't already one happening. I will make sure that camping spots become useless over time, by walls being destroyed.

Another way to keep the map interesting would be to enable more and more special infected as the game goes on. Not only will this keep the game interesting by adding milestones to the gameplay - it will ensure that no players die at the start of the game, before anything has happened.

If you have any suggestions, post them on the discussion page.

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April 25, 2009

The apartments/shop

Here is an image showing the apartments/shop. This area was created first, and has set the standard of detail that I am trying to match throughout the map. The interiors of the buildings shown are not created yet. Although the buildings are hollow, the walls are still using dev textures and window places are not carved out yet.

Seeing as the map will revolve around a large skyscraper, I decided it would look wrong if there were no other relatively modern looking skyscrapers around. you can see one to the left of the screenshot.

I am looking forward to the SDK release, but fearing that models and textures will need replacing in order to carry any maps over from the fake SDK.

Currently I am working on adding a law office to the map.

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