New RELEASE : Highland.map

[quakis]

This got delayed by two weeks, but I finally uploaded my review; http://taw.duke4.net/2012/06/duke3d/highland/

[David B.]

Thanks for interests.

@quakis
I totally disagree with your opinion about the final battle presented as a "weak choice".
The grounds behind offered an ample space intended for a more important battle and I didn't find an ending with the nuke button
we've already seen thousands and thousands of times very interesting. Therefore I found it subjective cause it's rather a matter of personal taste.

Another point however, I'll assume strategy is not one of my forces yet. When I look back,
bigger groups of ennemies should certainly have been set up in a smarter way throughout the map.

[MSandt]

Nukebuttons that imply continuation or the accomplishment of a mission are usually a more welcome sight than a Battlelord.

[Forge]

To me nuke buttons mean "more to come". Boss fights imply a finally. But that's thinking along the lines of the way the original maps and episodes are. After playing hundreds of user maps and seeing both so many times, it almost makes no difference anymore.

As for this map, it wasn't overly difficult combat or puzzle-wise throughout the first portions inside the building. The ball park final battle was a nice choice and gave the map a little needed boost to the "challenge" level. It could have been set up as a fight against hordes of baddies to get to a nuke button/end-of-level-sector down that side alley/back side of the ball field, or it could be the way you have it now. Either way is appropriate in my opinion.

[quakis]

I've always found the Battlelord as a final boss in usermaps to be a dull choice, since he's not exactly interesting to fight against after this many years with his deadly hitscans of death in open areas - especially considering not many have gone out their way to change up how players do battle with him. Atleast the Overlord or Cycloid have visible projectiles I could try to avoid and keeps me on my toes as not to trip into a rocket to the face - even Mikko's boss map in Metropolitan tries something refreshing with the Cycloid. The Battlelord just leaves so much more to be desired and generally works better as a mini-boss personally.

[Forge]

Of all the bosses, the overlord, next to the queen, is probably the most "under used". I'm guessing it's due to its limited form of attack and requires a fairly open space to be effective. (there are creative exceptions, I'm merely speaking in general since that's usually the environment I've seen them used in).

The ballpark in this map would have been a good environment to use it. This also could have been amplified if the commanders were spawned first to cause a distraction.

That being said, I still find the "tired, old" battlelord a decent choice for use in this map.

On a tangent I would not have provided the player with the devastator, just the RPG.

[MSandt]

Battlelord is overused because of the animation thing.

[Gambini]

Battlelord is overused because of the animation thing.

You mean mappers put a battlelord at the end so the ending animation makes sense? pffff if that´s what you meant, then it´s completely stupid. I only watched that animation once or twice in my life, I always skip it to the level stats. And I´m sure everybody does the same.

[David B.]

I hesitated between the cycloid and the battlelord.
The last seemed to me more nervous. You could still easily avoid the rockets of the first, so...
I don't care about animation, I even wanted to know how to remove it ? Isn't it possible to put
a battlelord as final boss without having this cinematic ?

[Micky C]

No, it's not possible in the vanilla game to remove or change the cinematic