viewtopic.php?t=633
But notice that Downtown has only one vote. Someone said it's too simple. So I decided to take a detailed look at this map, and in this post I will show what I found, and also discuss the question: "Why Downtown failed to attract the players compared with the other districts?"
My standpoint:
Before discussing the general characteristics of the map, it's worth mentioning that Downtown is a new-player-friendly map, since it is the stage 1.
The players who played Downtown a lot without doing the missions (and thereby prolonged they way to get the stage 2, Residential District) might have more nostalgia for Downtown than the other districts.
In Downtown Singleplayer we have (as far as I know)
- No Shotgun, Electrogun, Dual Pistols or Grenades;
- No "Life +1" or "Multiplier x1" powerups;
- No Electrofingers powerup;
- Railways aren't electrified (except the tunnel entrances);
- No Gold Mines shop;
- All gangs use pistols regardless of how hated you are.
- 2 tanks that locks itself if the player get out, being unable to reenter.
It's obviously a game design choice, since it fortify the feeling of progression when you come to Residential District. As to multiplayer, we only have the absence of Gold Mines shop in Downtown.
But now we will compare it between the other two Districts.
- Pavement variety
There's the miniatures from the districts maps. As we can see, both Residential and Industrial Districts clearly are splitted between at least 3 sections.
- Districts maps
- districts2.jpg (201.33 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
Residential: Dark green pavement from north boroughs; yellow pavement from south boroughs; dirty and sand from the Redneck area; and The Village area for Zaibatsu.
Industrial: Blue pavement from the central boroughs; the yellow pavement from the Kristna area; the light-red pavement from the Russian Mafia area; and the grey sand from the Mad Island.
Downtown: Mostly the boring white pavement with some dark green or chess-floor areas, and the red pavement area and grass from Loonies area.
We see from far that Residential and Industrial Districts have delimited areas with their own essence. Only the Loonies Area have a distinct environment in Downtown District. The Zaibatsu and Yakuza areas basically differ only by the buildings textures.
Incidentally, the Loonies area is somewhat small compared to the Zaibatsu and Yakuza ones. Just the most different area, with distinct pavements and roads. This image illustrate it: the dark blue area for Yakuza, grey area for Zaibatsu and the red area for Loonies.
- Gang areas
- gang_areas.jpg (124.48 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Streets variety
In the entirety of Downtown District, we see only two street variants: grey and brown roads. The map has two large avennues, in which across each other in two points. It's the two large road squares that can be seen in the Downtown miniature map.
In the other hand, Industrial and Residential Districts have these variants:
- Roads variants (Industrial and Residential)
- roads2.jpg (154.89 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
Btw, Residential District have "The Mall", the Zaibatsu-Redneck bridge, the "Big Ben" tower in Arbo, some Hospitals and large avennues set in strategic positions among "generic buildings/boroughs" to remember (in the most part of the map) to player where he finds himself.
- Interesting vs Generic Locations
The most memorable areas/buildings from each district (from my standpoint) are:
Residential District: Army Base, Alma Mater Prison, Redneck Area, H2000 Company, The Redneck-Zaibatsu long bridge, The Mall
Industrial District: Army Base, Mad Island, Cop Stations, Gonad's parking lot, Factories at Russian Area, Zaibatsu's Power Core & Decon Labs, Vedic Temple
Downtown District: Avalon's train station and Cathedral (which is a classic respawn point); The Hidden Surprise area at northeast.
Of all locations mentioned, Downtown District have the less interesting locations. The Avalon's locations is (for me) mostly due to the nostalgia: of the Cathedral respawn, the hospital connected with stairs with the fire department, and the train station which joints the two separated railroads.
- Avalon
- avalon.jpg (130.47 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Sunnyside 1
- empty_area6.jpg (94.37 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Sunnyside 2
- empty_area7.jpg (137.3 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Johnny Zoo exotic cars building
- yakuza_mission_building.jpg (69.04 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Ukita 1
- ukita.jpg (103.99 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Ukita 2
- ukita2.jpg (126.27 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- University buildings
- monoblock_buildings.jpg (156.33 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Flotsam Police Station
- police_station.jpg (113.99 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Empty Area
- empty_area1.jpg (80.77 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Alley without weapons, only a slow car
- empty_area2.jpg (92.99 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Interesting building design, but a useless alley
- empty_area3.jpg (114.73 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Another generic area
- empty_area5.jpg (100.71 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- A big dead end
- loonies_empty_area.jpg (90.6 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
But particularly for me, in Downtown memorable locations I add this building in Altamont, which have armor, health and machine-gun powerups respawning. I used to create a havoc in the city without worrying about death.
- Perhaps the best place to make havoc in Downtown
- altamont_2.jpg (193.55 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Footbridges across the streets
- altamont_3.jpg (160.68 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
I opened the DMA Map Editor and checked the box "Mark Unused Tiles". Excluding the animation tiles (like water, doors, outdoors etc.) and some in-mission-use tiles (damaged ground, wall etc.), we will get the leftover textures of each district:
Bil.sty in Bil.gmp: 39 tiles unused
Ste.sty in Ste.gmp: 68 tiles unused
Wil.sty in Wil.gmp: 114 tiles unused
Total tiles of .sty: 991 tiles
There is, 11.5% of the Wil.sty tiles are unused in Downtown District. Far more than Residential and Industrial Districts. This somewhat reduces the variety of the textures in Downtown.
Who created medium or large size maps using the bil.sty may realized that some textures of the Industrial District it's too intricate, like the dark blue roof tiles (which btw appears in Residential District as well, but with a dark green tone); several pavement tiles (light blue and light red pavements) which have connections with the gray sand tiles; textures that aren't intuitive per si like the chimney textures and the coal container, which you need to take a look in Industrial District to see how these textures are used, etc.
As to ste.sty, we have the intricate redneck floor, which combines the dark and light beige tiles and the grass; roof tiles with some "props" like air vents, skylights, gutters etc which gives more detail.
But wil.sty lacks of those complex tiles, and therefore becomes the most easy .sty to create maps. In the other hand, the bil.sty is the most difficulty to learn and to create a good map.
- Other problems in Downtown multiplayer map/script:
1. The spawn of Player 2 are three blocks away at north from the Zaibatsu building, causing the player to fall two blocks and lose some health in the very beginning of the game.
- Misdisplacement of the P2 spawn
- spawn_player2.jpg (82.61 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
- Misdisplacement of the flamethrower
- flamethrower_underground.jpg (130.29 KiB) Viewed 2241 times
But after all, what unique things only Downtown have? (as far as I know)
1. In multiplayer, of all districts only Downtown enable cops with more than 1 head. Max heads is 4. But in no-police multiplayer games, it isn't matter.
2. It seems the only district to use the bollard in some stairs, preventing the player to use cars in these stairs.
So... it's my opinion about Downtown District and why this map isn't attractive as Residential and Industrial Districts are to multiplayer games (despite people to like more the fan-made maps nowadays).
(sorry for my bad english)
