(http://img862.imageshack.us/img862/8297/sanctuarysubterfuge1.png)
Oh boy, here it comes... I'm sure this map will make for a LIVELY discussion.
So I was raging at Fusion Spire the other day for being impossible to draw (
THOSE FREAKIN' 3D FLOORS MAN) when I decided to stop work on it and do something else. Beed28 has always been one of my favorite classes for being so darn fun and having a weapon for every situation, so I wanted to make him a map similar to one of the dungeons Volnutt goes digging in to retrieve those funky energy crystals. I started with the Bridge Room (bottom left) because I wanted a magnificent wide-open area with a bridge in it to set the scene, so to speak. Really I was thinking it would look super cool because Indiana Jones movies and what-not. A simple open room with a bridge seemed boring though, so I thought "what sort of traps would an ancient civilization put inside of their dungeons?"
The answer was Quick Beams. Really, the answer's
always Quick Beams if you think about it.
From there, I tried putting in a room where it looked like the dungeon was falling apart due to old age, so the Decay Room (bottom right) was added next. Some of the otherwise perfectly solid floor has broken away to form pits, and I was thinking some of the textures there could be off-colour to signify rustiness or wearing down. A simple chamber with some pits seemed boring though, so I thought "what other things happen when an ancient civilization's dungeon starts to fall apart"? Blocks fall from the ceiling, of course! In the area I marked "Rock Zone" I was thinking there would be three actors on the roof that spawned rocks which fall down and shatter when they hit the floor (or a player). Each falling rock spawner would have different rates of spawning their rocks to give an impression of randomness. The rocks would do 15 damage if they hit a player; the rock fragments would be completely harmless.
Once I thought of the falling rock gimmick I sort of got carried away with thinking of traps to put in rooms, so the map sort of stopped being a Mega Man Legends dungeon and slowly morphed into a collection of gimmicks. In the Sand Room, the platforms marked "2?" were originally going to be at an elevation of 2, but I thought that might not work so well so maybe you could make those 1 elevation instead. Look above and you'll see the Conveyor Room. I put arrows on the belts to signify which direction they move; to help players notice the difference, you might want to take MM6YAM's conveyor textures and recolour them. Those textures have four frames of animation if I'm not mistaken whereas MM2MET's conveyor textures only have two frames; it would be easier to see whether a conveyor was moving left or right with the Yamato Man textures.
The last room (which I'm calling the Cliff Room for now) was originally going to have lava in it that freezes if you hit a pillar with an icey weapon, similar to Junk Man. However, I didn't think freezable lava was very fitting in an ancient civilization's dungeon, especially one with sand in it. I threw around some other ideas, like coating the floor in burnable oil, adding Elec Man lightning shooters into the walls between the pits (the red areas I wrote "WHAT" and "NOPE" next to) or making the pit behave like Pandaemonium's Void Zones (with some fog or something in the gap to help players see the difference between the Void Zone and the other instant death pits in the level), but I just couldn't decide what I wanted to do.
However, I know that I don't want the gap in the middle of the Cliff Room to be so open like that because it would let players reach the Elevation 4 area much easier, so I put some ideas for gap formations right here (http://img841.imageshack.us/img841/9921/sanctuarysubterfuge2.png). (W denotes walls, by the way.) Honestly I like the third option (the one at the bottom) much better than the other two. I wasn't sure whether to keep the exterior curve or to truncate it to a point, so that's why it says "Hmmm?" right there.
When I finished the blueprint I thought it was a good idea, but a couple days later I thought it was stupid and too gimmicky so I almost threw it out.
One of my friends persuaded me otherwise though:
[09:02:49 PM] Harpy Lady: I think it's cool.
[09:02:59 PM] Bumper Smash Man: are you fucking serious
[09:03:18 PM] Harpy Lady: Yeah, it's not TOO over-the-top is it?
[09:03:51 PM] Harpy Lady: I mean, there's traps everywhere
[09:04:03 PM] Harpy Lady: but it's a good layout and you can still move around
[09:04:27 PM] Harpy Lady: It's like if that IX pyramid stage had a little brother ^_^
[09:04:36 PM] Bumper Smash Man: LOL
[09:04:51 PM] Bumper Smash Man: you're going to make me spit out my soda
[09:05:02 PM] Harpy Lady: lol
And that's why I wrote that little "joke" in the center there. :lol: