Facing Castles ReadMe
Release Date: 12/14/2000

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Title: Facing Castles

Filename: CTF-FacingCastles 

Version: v1.02

Last Update: 12/24/2000

Author: Gene Ostrowski

E-mail address: genehsd@earthlink.net

Where to get this map: Nali City

Other levels by author: None that have been released yet :)


Play Information 
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Game: Unreal Tournament
Deathmatch: No 
Teamgames:  YES !!! :)
Botmatch: Yes 
Difficulty Settings: None 
New Sounds: None 
New Graphics: None
New Unreal Script: None 
External DLLs: None 
Mods: None 



Construction 
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Base: New level
 
Build time: About 3 weeks, solid!

Editor(s) Used: UnrealEd 

Known Bugs: Bots in "defend" mode will take their places in the "sniper" areas, but the LongRangeView Trigger never fires, so they wont snipe across the field.... sigh...


Inventory 
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Weapons: Same as Facing Worlds
Armor & PowerUps: Same as Facing Worlds




Installation 

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Unzip the MAPNAME file in your Unreal Tournament/Maps directory, then doubleclick on it,
type 'open MAPNAME' in the console or select the Map in a Botmatch or an Internet game.





Author's Notes 

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The idea for Facing Castles came to me during my many LONG bouts of Internet UT 
playing on the Facing Worlds map.  

Facing Worlds is an immensely popular map, as it has a good level design and great gameflow.  
I play it constantly, but like everything else, it starts to get a little old after playing it
for weeks straight.

Facing Castles is my attempt to provide a little variety to the Facing Worlds map, while still
retaining all of the elements that I felt were good (and getting rid of some of the not 
so good stuff).  I think my final design came out great-- during playtesting, we came up with all
sorts of new strategies, while it seemed that most of the old strategies still worked with little
modification. 

Things I wanted to keep (from Facing Worlds) in the new map:

o General level layout - it should be immediately recognizable as a Facing Worlds variant.  
  Good players that are used to running up and down the ramp backwards will have no problems adjusting
  to the new map.
o General weapon placements for powerups, etc.
o The placement of the spawn locations is generally the same.
o Lots of sniping locations.
o I love the ramp between the castles, so I kept it in my new map.
o Few healths and ammo.  If you need health, don't get hit so much! :)
o The same weapons and stuff (no boots, no flak cannon, no bio sludge, etc.)
o Armor on roof, redeemer in alcove, etc.
o Lots of places to defend the flag in the flag room.
o You must still cross the ramp to get home.

Things I wanted to end forever:

o Spawn sniping from across the way.
o Rooftop piston-camping. You can still do it, but you'll be in plain view...
o Only one way into the castle was a pain in the butt once the enemy took it over.  I now offer a 
  few other ways in.
o Team killers piston pumping you off the world near your spawn locations was a pain.  Gone!

Things that I though would be better:

o I wanted the level to be a little larger that Facing Worlds.  With 30 people running around the
  map on an Internet game, it was a little crowded.
o It seems that universally, people always said "it'd be cool to go underneath the castle 
  and the ramp".  Now you can.
o I felt that the "main" room in the castles was too small.  It was too easy to run around in
  a tight circle spraying pipe bombs all over the place and racking up a zillion frags.  A larger 
  room makes it a little more difficult.
o I wanted to do more in the entrances of the castles.  There's a few defense points in there and it's a 
  little bigger.
o I wanted to make grabbing the flag require a little more of a deliberate effort, 
  so I raised it on a ledge and offered ramps to climb up (and hide under).
o More than one tower.  I now have two smaller towers, connected with bridges.
o Side structures in the "yard" that could be used as sniper homes or defense points.
o Castle defenders cannot sit in front of the castle and shock rifle everyone that comes down the ramp
  (one of my *favorite* things).  You have to move around a little to defend the base, since there
  are now a few ways in.

All in all, I think the map turned out great.  There are a *ton* of new strategies that my playtesters and I have already devised, and it really changes the gameplay.

Let me know what you think of the map.  I'd love to hear your opinions on it.  
Send me an email at: genehsd@earthlink.net

Updates:

11/24/00 - Version 1.01
	 - Fixed some of the textures that weren't lining up properly.  
   	 - Dropped the levels of a few lights to deepen the shadows in some places.  Probably
	   not noticeable to most people, but I can tell the difference.

11/28/00 - Version 1.02
	 - Fixed some more unaligned textures.
	 - Removed the shield belts.  They were in an easy spot, and give the wearer too much protection.
           Also, gave spawn killers the extra edge if they were back there wreaking havok on the enemy.

Credits:  
Map by Gene Ostrowski

Special thanks to Cedric Fiorentino for creating the original Facing Worlds, which inspired this
map tremendously.

Thanks to God of Thunder and CrackPipe for helping hammer out the playtesting snags, and to all the
others who gave their feedback to make this a fun level.



Copyright / Permissions 

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This level is copyrighted by Gene Ostrowski, 2000.

Authors may NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels.

You are NOT allowed to commercially exploit this level, i.e. put it on a CD or any 
other electronic medium that is sold for money without my explicit permission!

You MAY distribute this file freely, as long as you keep the archive file intact and include this readme file unmodified.





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UNREAL and UNREAL TOURNEMENT are ©1998, 1999 Epic Megagames, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 Distributed by GT Interactive Software, Inc. under license. UNREAL and the UNREAL logo are 
registered trademarks
 of Epic Megagames, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are properties of
 their respective owners.

