WhiteClock Station
Latest live Version: ut4_whiteclock_a2
I actually have Whiteclock... close to finished! While I fine tune things, it is playable!!! Enjoy!
This one has been through many, MANY changes. Had I only worked on this one, and had I finished it, WhiteClock would have been my fourth map. It began in May of 2011 with a bit of free-sculpting, from which I made this tall building, white block/brick texture, and hinting at gothic style. And I wanted to have a blimp, a zeppelin, old school. And trollies, ala Mr Rogers. And then I thought... Jack The Ripper era. Oh! White Chapel... White Chapel Station. But, as the theme changed, and it became ovious that it had absolutely nothing to do with Jack The Ripper or White Chapel, I went with the next prominent feature: The clock on the WHite Tower, and the train/trolley stations: WhiteClock Station.
The original white building was not "tower-y" enough for my tastes. It was beautiful (in my opinion), nice gothic, but quite FPS intensive once other bits of architecture were added. With a heavy sigh, I demolished that original building. And then I began working on a new texture set, and rebuilding EVERYTHING. As I worked, I drew from past experiences, and found myself continually deconstructing and reconstructing, all in an effort to make it aesthetically appealing (to me, at least), functional, and playable without too much complexity, and without too many difficult hiding spots.
One blimp seemeed to create an unfairness, as one team in CTF would have the blimp available first, similar to how one of the "cheeseburger speeders" in Katooine would have proven unfair. So, as before, two. And as with Katooine, start them in a central location for each team, allowing that first spawn to reach them and posisbly utilize them before they leave. Since the ability for a player to control a func_train is gone, all of my vehicles are currently automatic. However! With the most recent changes I began with this map, I made the trollies player controllable.
As of today, I have: Two zeppelins, one starting on the "red" side, and one on the "blue" side; several trollies, evenly split between the two sides, each controllable by hoping in and using the same key (combo) you use to open a door; and... working clocks!!! Yes, the clocks begin at quarter to Midnight, and run in real time from the start of the map. On top of that, they trigger a bell chime (similar to Big Ben) at Midnight (12 bongs!), and then again at 12:30am (a single, "on the half hour" bong). At some point I might add in another bong at 1:00am.
I am currently unsure how FPS will be. It has done decently enough with as many as 18 playing (9v9 CTF). I need to do a lot of structural brush and hint brush work to refine that, but with such an open map and the Quake 3 engine, it is not high on my priority list currently.
