Rockman World Map Pack

[Shmeckie]

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages! We present to you; the Rockman World Map Pack (formerly the "Gameboy Map Pack")!

Version 1a: http://www.mediafire.com/?3pvplysn1ru93j1

Map Pack team:
Shmeckie (leader)
Gumballtoid
Blaze McPhearson
And we're always open to new members! Send me a PM if you want to be involved!

What is the Rockman World Map Pack? Glad you asked! This map pack was made with a single goal in mind; to make MM8BDM arenas out of stages exclusive to the Mega Man Gameboy titles. This is only the first release, folks, with more stages on the way! But first thing's first; what can you expect in this map pack?

Version 1a

You could call Version 1a the "Special Stage map pack." The first release features three stages dedicated to the fan-favorite Mega Man Killers (including my boy, Punk). Each stage offers unique elements to make any match interesting, while never being intrusive, or getting the way of a good, no-holds-barred smackdown!

Enker (RW1ENK)
(Gumballtoid)

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Enker's stage is an interesting one; littered with spikes that are, in general, easy to avoid, while still keeping you on your toes. Spike pits thin enough to run over, with larger ones over cliffs and edges. Fancy footwork means you'll have full access to its variety of weapons, all of which have specific, strategic uses that make good use of the terrain.




But fear not; the spikes of Enker's stage won't get in the way of its many expansive rooms and wide corridors. The more green-behind-the-ears among us will have plenty of room to work without succumbing to their own carelessness, and Classes matches need not fear the Magnet Man. There's plenty of open areas and save crevices, all boasting a variety of weapons that allow skilled players to make good use of whatever terrain the rooms in Enker's stage have to offer.

Punk (RW3PUN)
(Shmeckie, with help from Knux)

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Punk's stage features two separate areas; a main, larger lower area, and a smaller upper area. In the main area, getting the high ground is the name of the game. The arsenal of weapons you'll find take advantage of this (with a few places to give folks on the lower ground a way to fight back). This area of Punk's stage is wide and expansive, with plenty of ways to get the drop on opponents, and make strategic use of the weapons at your disposal.




The lower area features large, spacious hallways, enormous rooms (without being TOO enormous. Just big enough to fit lots of people and have plenty of room for movement, without taking 20 minutes to traverse), and plenty of escape routes for those who are low on health. The layout is straightforward, preventing players from getting lost; everything revolves around the room with the holes created by Punk (a shout-out to the fight against him in MM3GB. or, more specifically, his dramatic entrance). Teleporters leading to the upper area are peppered throughout this area, as well. No matter what room you're in, there's always multiple ways out!




The upper area is a simple series of wide halls, and two small rooms with the Punk-smashed holes to drop down through. While smaller, this area is still large enough to hold a group of people without getting overcrowded, and boasts weapons that make good use of the layout. In the hole rooms, you'll find Screw Crusher and Napalm Bomb, and two holes per room. One hole will drop you to the upper area of the main room, where you can throw your new bounce weapon at the people below, out of reach (unless you're playing Classes). The other hole will drop you to the lower area. Knowing which hole to fall through can be the difference between becoming a target, and safely raining death on your foes (but not too safely, so watch out)!

Ballade (RW4BAL)
(Blaze McPhearson)

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Greatly revamped from what's in the AMP pack, Ballade's Stage is now a seamless network of rooms boasting a wide variety of powerful weapons, and the terrain in which to properly use them. Traveling from one room to another is now done with total ease, and each room provides plenty of cover, exploitable terrain, and powerful weapons to help turn the tide of any match!




In the new Ballade Stage, you'll find particularly powerful weapons perched in precarious locations, rewarding only the most dexterous of players. Even without them, the overall weapon layout is nothing to be trifled with, and skilled players who prefer one style of weapon or another will find just what they're looking for to make any match go their way! With a smooth layout, spacious rooms, and good weapon variety, Ballade's stage will make for a fun fracas no matter how many players you pack into it!

What can you expect from version 2? Well, folks, look for the black sheep of the Gameboy titles to have his day (or map, in this case), and get ready to throw down inside of Dr. Wily's most menacing fortresses!

If you'd like to try the map pack out in multiplayer, we always appreciate a good host! However, the pack will be hosted in my Classes Deathmatch server for awhile, if you just want to jump right in and try it!

[D25]

Wow, this is really awesome! All the maps look like they had a lot of thought put into them, and the punk-holes gave me a laugh. All in all, great job.
Edit: Well, after messing around with the maps a bit, I'm sorry to say I kinda agree with Ivory and Mr.X.

[Ivory]

Time for feedback from me and Mr. X in one conjoined post.

Enker: It's tiny and full of deathpits. You guys also hid Mirror Buster in an Item 1 only area with a door that opens one way? This is such horrible design. You NEVER, EVER, have secret rooms like this in DM. It's just awful design. Have Mirror Buster on a ledge that needs Item 1. But an entire room that you can camp in easily?
The random rooms with black walls also scream "I had nothing better to put here and feel like they are just here for the sake of existing.

Punk: This map is too large. The floor textures are painful on the eyes due to the black. That crusher path is far too long, difficult and pointlessly there. That entire upper area is even more pointlessly there. All the rooms are needlessly long or big. with nothing interesting in them. One of the most notable areas is that long hallway between two elevated paths. The worst room however is that large room that requires a hell of a lot of jumps to get up.

(click to show/hide)

This is yet another never do these types of design

Ballade: Okay, this one confuses me greatly. Blaze, you had a solid map the last time I saw it. Now it's larger, and requires too many jumps to get between the elevations. The map lacks enough textures to be this large and it makes the map layout is generally confusing as a result. Generally, it's far worse than how I remember it being. Another thing? Why does basically every room insist on having pillars in the center of it?



Overall I rate this pack to be very low, and my honest, blunt feedback is to trash the maps and go back to the drawing boards. Enker and Punk are not salvageable. Ballade, maybe. What I saw before had promise. But these are not good maps designs.

[FTX6004]

This map pack is cool i like punk's stage more than enker and ballade.

[Shmeckie]

Gumball is addressing the issues with Enker's stage (including dropping the Mirror Buster room), and everything will be resolved in Version 1b.

As for Punk, I'm gonna hold off until we get some more feedback both here, and over Skype. That particular stage has also gotten some positive feedback (though the size still seems to be a problem for some. Some areas may be shrunk for Version 1b, but I want to hold off anything major until we see how it plays with a packed crowd of people. The stage was tested with crowded rooms and designed to have optimal room to dodge around). Also, Ivory and X's major problem with it just seems to be an issue of jumping. If more people have an aversion to jumping places, we'll fix it up. The Crusher path may be replaced, depending on further feedback. I do have an idea for that one...

Ivory and X's qualms with Ballade stump me a bit; when I hosted the AMP pack, everyone and their mother complained about that stage. They whined and complained and would vote to change stages every other time we played in it. This new version addresses the major complaints people had.

So, while Enker is being revamped, and I know Blaze is tinkering with Ballade, I'm gonna hold off for further feedback on Punk. Some changes will be made, but how extensive they are depends on what the folks say.

[MusashiAA]

Doomseeker can't find this in any of the sites listed for wad searching. Won't give any feedback until this issue is solved. :3

Also, it's hosted on Classes Deathmatch. You seriously don't want people to join your server, do you?

[Shmeckie]

Odd. We uploaded it to Wadhost as I was posting the thread...

[Blaze The Cat]

I just played it with others.

Enker, A.K.A Spiked-Floor Man

This map has far too many spikes and ways to die. So many that it's easy to die while jumping  up a simple ledge because you got hurt. Some steps, I couldn't even see the instant kill spikes before reaching the top of the ledge. Other than that, it was a fair map with a good size, and a nice selection of weapons that work well in the level.

Punk

This level was very big. Once I got into the room with fire blast and knight crush, I had no idea that leaving the room meant falling into cracked holes in the floor that sort of spoke death pit to me. As a result, I wandered around the room for a few minutes looking for a way out. It's nice, yes, but it would be good if we knew. This level is probably a little on the big side. Yes, it would play better when there's maybe 3 or 4 players.

Ballade

This level is far too large. It took sometimes a minute to find even one player in a 6 player game. However, I liked how it was laid out. It was often a puzzle on how to get most of the weapons, which I liked, especially for the more powerful weapons. It had plenty of tedious jumping sections, though. I'm a little concerned about that.

The maps were well plotted out, and it was fun trying them out. Thanks for making the levels!

[Gumballtoid]

Alright, now that I've gotten a bit more feedback, I can say a lil' sommin' regarding Enker.

Ivory is completely right regarding the secret room. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but rest assured it will be gone come v1b. The corridor using the black texture will be changed as well. However, I will by no means scrap the map itself. My intent is to keep it the smaller of the maps, while Ballade is the medium-sized map, and Punk is the largest of the three.

The spikes aren't going anywhere. When traversing areas filled with spikes, don't be careless. The idea is to sabotage others' efforts at crossing the spikes safely while being mindful of yourself at the same time.

I'm always looking for more feedback.

[Mr. X]

...But the spikes are the biggest problem.  They're everywhere.

[Ivory]

You know, there is a reason why people tend to dislike maps like Gyro and Wave and well, any map that's biggest danger factor is the sheer amount of deathpits you can fall into right?

[Shmeckie]

The spikes never really bothered me, and haven't seemed to bug most of the folks who've tried it out in the map pack's trial server (I could be wrong, though, but I haven't seen anyone complain about them outside of you and Mr. X). The trick is that just about every spike pit can be safely run over, and there's an undeniable fun factor in deliberately shooting people who are crossing them.

[Knux]

The spikes never really bothered me, and haven't seemed to bug most of the folks who've tried it out in the map pack's trial server (I could be wrong, though, but I haven't seen anyone complain about them outside of you and Mr. X). The trick is that just about every spike pit can be safely run over, and there's an undeniable fun factor in deliberately shooting people who are crossing them.

Kind of a bump here, but bear with me. No mods, staph.

It's not so much about the spikes bothering you or other people yet. You have to take playability into mind if you want deathmatches to go somewhere. You should place guardrails around the areas in Enker's stage so that people who choose to concentrate on one thing at a time don't fall in. The whole map is a combination of death traps and platforming, two things that work only when they're not used together (Airman Remixed is an excellent example of do not do this). In fact, it'll still be tedious to get around even with guardrails, because of the small spaces. You might need a new layout for this one.

Punk's map... well, the only thing I had to do with the layout here was a secret in the map. It could definitely be smaller to make better use of Screw Crusher, and to avoid an "I CAN'T FIND PEOPLE ASDASDSA" scenario. I remember volunteering to make Shmeckie's layout he drew on paper because I thought it fitted. Those steps that Ivory mentioned are tedious to climb, something I also thought. The map is so big, in fact, that it could do away with the area having Knight Crush and Rush Coil, and reducing the size of the remaining section. I remember Shmeckie not wanting the area gone, though, which is probably true because it's still there after release. It's all a matter of making the map simpler to allow for a proper deathmatch. Otherwise, it's good for Roboenza and the like.

Ballade's map makes better use of Screw Crusher than Punk's, which is funny. The map doesn't feel big to me, but it does feel like a labrynth. Could do away with some areas, or simplify them. No idea how that would be done, though. Maybe move the conveyor belts to the room where Screw Crusher is, and eliminating that area. The path that leads to a W Tank could go, too, and left as a platform with a ladder leading to it.

There are endless possibilities when making maps. I've learned that when someone gives you criticism, you don't have to do any of it. However, there is no harm in trying what is suggested. You can just choose to not save the map if you think it doesn't work after testing it in a game. As long as you achieve what you aim for, it's all good.

[Shmeckie]

After playing a bunch of matches, even with small groups, on Punk's map, I doubt we'll be shrinking it. Even in a game with just 2 or 3 people, finding people was never an issue. Despite the size of the rooms, there's only a few rooms which connect to each other in multiple ways, with plenty of teleporters to get to the upper area. The stairs that need to be jumped up will likely be replaced with slope stairs, though.

Can't speak for the specific changes being made to Enker or Ballade, but changes are being made.

[Knux]

After playing a bunch of matches, even with small groups, on Punk's map, I doubt we'll be shrinking it. Even in a game with just 2 or 3 people, finding people was never an issue.

Doesn't mean there will never be an issue, but it's 'kay bro. Could be great for big games of like 32 people or so.

Despite the size of the rooms, there's only a few rooms which connect to each other in multiple ways, with plenty of teleporters to get to the upper area.

The only thing it needs now is Minotaur Man.

The stairs that need to be jumped up will likely be replaced with slope stairs, though.

That could end up looking ugly, but I'll wait before saying anything.

Can't speak for the specific changes being made to Enker or Ballade, but changes are being made.

Well, at least you're doing something on them. Guess we'll have to wait and see.