Binge Arena
Gametypes Supported:
FFA, LMS, TDM, TS, FTL, CAH, CTF, Bomb, FT, GunGameNumber Of Players:
Single: 16, Team: 32 (16/team)Latest live Version: ut4_bingearena_a6
I am calling this my final map, but who knows. When I said I was going to retire, Binge&Grab screamed, "NOOOO!!!" and then said I had promised to make him his map, Binge Arena. I did, and now I have.
What started out as Binge's dream turned into... this. Much like I took Dank's idea for his DankRider Arena and made it into this monster of a map, I took Binge's idea and went a bit crazy with it. It began with Binge showing me the beginning room on a jump map, ut4_dayum_v1. He wanted a map with the downward spiral, one flag up top, one at the bottom. Part of me feels bad for Binge, since the end result is quite far from that original dream he had.
While the existing Binge Arena map does have the 3 walls and angled floors from that top section of that single beginning room of Dayum, the rest was me creating a spiral down, then duplicating it and flipping it horizontally. It still did not feel right to me, so I took those two halves, duplicate, and once again, flip, with the topmost platforms (and original spawn) being far apart. To avoid spawn to spawn snipe nightmares, I placed a nice big horizontal column across the entire map. Down below, I added a tunnel to go between the two sides. And some arrows/boosters, one per side. While the original idea was to have it all soft landing except for the bottom floor, this new 4 quadrant version demanded that I make the final, lowest ramps a nice damaging gift. Thus was born the Splat Zones. Binge then asked for lava off the side of each fo those bottom ramps, yielding 4 quadrants of lava. The slightly raised bumpers at each side of every ramp then became slick, no damage glass. And that tunnel had to go, it became a very easy cap route, too easy.
The next step was to remove the tunnel. Blocking it would have congested the map. So, I removed the walls, left the entries (now "Grab Columns"), placed a thin rail on each side, meeting in the center to form a small square platform (a nice spot for a bomb!). Then I created a squished "vee" set of walkways to each side, forming a nice squished diamond, and filled the center with lava. The arrows provide hope, the lava and faulty travel paths take it away. Success!!! Decals and graffiti were added over time. Soundclips added. And then...
Tron. Binge provided example pics, and a nice round of trial and error commenced. A map that began with gray cement type textures now became light to dark purple. And lighting... "make it dimmer". Due to q3 engine issues, these lovely flared spots appeared on the walkways where the lava was. As a means of trying to eliminate them, I textured the lava with a different texture, a nearly all black one. And since I reacted to it while on Teamspeak, Binge had to see it. And then he had to have the map built using that isntead of the lava texture. But, still have it be lava. Black lava. We could not find a texture that truly worked. I went to sleep that night, and it hit me: duh, match the lava to the rest of the theme! Black, with deep purple swirls. The deep purple as the texture for the lighting for the lava was perfect. More refinements, Binge's unnatural love of "King Of The Hill" (especially Hank Hill), and et viola! It is a crazy map; Binge wanted a map that rewards jumpers, has a Tron feel, has fun soundclips to trigger, and is dark. Add in my tempering his desires and wishes, and LOTS of help from Furrylicious, Roberts, and Thirsty (and help from FSK405, of course!), and this is what was produced. Skill is rewarded, and EVERYONE is punished. Schadenfreude reigns!
(In my opinion, the screenshots do not come close to doing the map justice. The lighting makes it rough to capture it really well.)
