Beatiful! 10/10!

yeah really nice , but pls package it right !

First of all very epic optic. I realy like the details especially the feeling that stronghold is inhabited.

But the clip is quite bad.I started climbing in ictf and made a screen:
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=8-insta_ctf-strongholdusvw.png

furthermore you have to add waypoints and make the camping a little bit more difficult

atm 6 points

@Finn:
"Work in progress"... As I said I have to finish the clipping and testing the gameplay. ATM I fixed some missing items (lights and jumps), waypoints are on the bottom of the todo list, there are some spots where bots get very confused and get stuck.
"make the camping a little bit more difficult"... said by you is totally amazing ;D btw I don't think I will add/remove stuffs to make the map less campable, this is just the final version, I'll publish the complete and finished map within a day or two. Sorry for packaging, I rushed a bit because I had to work this morning, will fix that issue as well with the final version.
For now I thank everyone for the feedbacks.

ill wont comment much about this map.
most parts of the map speak for theirselves...
4/10 points for it. ill rate higher if you would make an artistic map of it just because flow isnt very well (same to gameplay). even tough lighting isnt that good either just because there are plenty of lights added, but not enough lightsources. some wacky texture combinations has been added into the map either.
if you stil have to test the gameplay, please then you reall should read hourence's book:
http://www.hourences.com/book/bookgameplay.htm
maybe usefull for the lighting to:
http://www.hourences.com/book/booklighting.htm
you probably can use it...

Pls use the reply - Button and don't comment twice

yeah its okay ^^ im doing this sometimes,too.

I just wanted to mention it

i like it. it's fun and looks nice.

Let me speak for most Sauer players:

WHAT THE HELL. Valhalla continually pisses me off because I spend more time looking up than forward, due to the endless supply of campers the map fosters. This is even worse: You basically designed a red carpet to the ultimate camping spot, easily accessible through a teleport all the way to the top of the map. Further, you made the area partially protected by a small wall, so that the camper will be rather difficult to shoot down, even with a scope. That was my other problem with Valhalla - it was so vast you require zoom to be active for basically the whole game. And it's not like the camp spot is secluded - with some running it extends all the way across the side of the map, and at some points the player can be completely hidden by buildings. This equates to flag camping.

I've seen that this runs constant, then: you decide to create a vast, epic map but in doing so remove all aspects of what makes a map enjoyable (at least for me.. take this comment in stride, seeing as how there are some fans here).. small corridors, trick jumps, and a range of close and long range combat. That makes a map really enjoyable, but I can see this being a pure camper's paradise.

I will say this: my initial impression when I started on the map was "wow, this is massive". In that way, you got the point across. One feels utterly insignificant running about the map.

There are a few technical issues I saw in the various parts I looked at. First, there is a staircase on each side with a trim on it. You need to noclip it so that one can enter the stairs from the side. Also, what is the massive jumppad in the middle for? I saw it had no significant implications for the gameplay.. Except maybe for access to yet another camping spot.

The textures you included are rather low resolution I thought, at least for a detailed texture. It would be better to make them as 256x256 and shrink them in the .cfg to preserve quality. And you didn't need to include the pure white textures - I've seen the snow texture work rather well for lights (in the .cfg you can set the glowmap as the same texture, a bit cheap but anyways) and in Core Refuge I cut the lunaran lights to a similar effect. And I'm sure there's a pure white texture lying around somewhere in the Sauer packaging, even if it's used for some technical purpose.

Lighting wasn't good. The lightsources you created look more artistic than functional, so the lights themselves don't seem to have a proper base. And they're all massive, with no depth.

I would suggest please please try to make a small map, as opposed to creating a huge map and doing a quantity over quantity choice. I wasn't planning on commenting, but then I saw that Asian-esque (is it?) curly artistic thing that reminded me of Valhalla and knew I had to say something, given that that map got on the release.

Anyways, I can't vote either ;) 2/10 for the initial impact of the map, but playability is horrible. I'm merely negating the vote of the guy who gave it 10/10 (really, is any map perfect?)

ok...

To start the packaging is incorrect. To fix all you have to do is put everything in a package folder, and put the cfg ogz map/jpg files in a base folder. Pretty simple your directory setup should look like this:
zip/packages/meister/all your textures;
zip/packages/base/the map cfg jpg

Off to the Map:

The map over all is grand, i think way too grand! The vastness of this map is by fact anoying. Way to much imbalance of playtypes. This map work posibly in a ffa or noninsta mode, but as for an insta map it will not work.

I assume by this fact that you are the creator of vallahala, because of the style and rhythm are the same. The problem with this maps in lies the same problem that vallahala has which is:
I spend more time looking up than forward, due to the endless supply of campers the map - kreten

The vastness of this map is its great weekness, this map would be good if you have 30-40 ppl playing, but if you have only a few this becomes as rediculas as trying to run through a mine field. The map has so many nooks and cranies that people could hide any were and you would never find them. Spawn killing will become a big issue on this map. In an insta ctf, the game will be won by the luckest time, who some how ran throught the mine field twice and did not get killed.

The only way this map could gain playablility is if you narrowed the field of play. If you push some of the areas into the backround, by making them unreachable, and made more cover for players to hide behind, this would improve the game play vastly.

I am personally disappointed at the texturing and lighting of this map, it really is not the quality that i expected from the screen shot. Many of the lights are either diplaced to far from the lightscource (a spot light is used and it shines to high up on the wall) or there is no light source for the light. Not having light scources for particular lights is ok, if these places are not reachable by the player, and they can not tell there is not scource. but when it is so obvious it just ruins the realism of the map, which a believe directly ties to the players perseption of the gameplay.

The texturing is even worst, the types of brick you chose sometimes works but they seem to fight with the other textures on this map, also the cfg file is not set up in the most appropreate way. (Many maps, even in the map pack in my opinion do not have the config file set correctly).

I wrote a review a while ago detailing the basic setup of this, but i will be uploading a more polished verion of this post soon, but for now, use a texture reset, this is most important because if the maps texture directory default ever changes, or a user decides to change it then it will change the textures on your map. If you do this to this map of course (type texturerest) it will remove and change all of your textures, but i think that the textures need changed any way. :)
here is the origanal review: here

a couple other things, the banners need to have a cap on them of some sort, just cuting the image off does not look good. Also, the texture that goes under the flag is upside down, or so it looks when you look from the enemies side. I would suggest chaning this to something that look the same on all sides :)

Your Lovable Jerk
chasester

This map is absolutely stunning. I have not tried any game-play, but I am fairly sure it would suit my styles.

Some things that I picked out when looking at this though were these:
Clipping: You clipped off that whole second level of arches even though they appear as though you should be able to get there. I think a player should be able to access those areas of the map, it may not offer any strategic advantage, but makes the player feel slightly more free.
When you go through the teleporter to the high balcony ( I'll talk about the teleporter shortly )-- you come out to the balcony and to the left and right is a clipped area and that sort of castle turret. The clip is extremely easy to bypass via a rocket jump and I'd suggest that you instead make a different barrier. With the way things are positioned it appeared to me like I could run there initially, my hopes were dashed by an invisible wall. ;)

Your teleporter's to the high balcony seem to be a bit to easy to get to in comparison to other points in the map. The balcony offers a large advantage, and thus I feel it should require slightly more effort to get to.
the room to the teleporter should also have an exit on at least one side in my own opinion ( preferably on both sides ), otherwise the bridge and that room really offer little choice in direction other than the tele, or to jump off the side of the bridge.

I also believe your fog needs adjustment. It seems to be overall too bright and ruins the feel of the map.

Lights look more artistic than practical, but I like them. The map is stone. If you were to make it all realistic.. then there wouldn't be much light to look at, would there? Unless of course it was daytime. :P

Beautiful map, great detailing. I can only imagine the amount of effort you put into it.
9/10 for now

@ kretren : i Gave 10 points for the Design , i also played it and it wasnt As horrible As you Said. Sure there are à Lot of Camper Spots , but they are on every Map . The Main Thing is to keep them As Little As it's possible .

Well i Know that its really hard to Build something for all Players ( Campers , flaghiders and so on ) , i just Know one map where its perfect : tempest .

So i don't take this too serious

p.s: in Core-Transfer you also got à Lot of Camper Spots , you cant avoid them.

ahh sry my ipod ^^ , tapped twice xD

Sooorry !!

yes i remember :P

Some people may really hate me for this, but what if you duplicated this map and place it back to back, to make a larger CTF map? There are a load of doors on the end walls, so if you opened up the doors on one end and added hallways...

Here is a picture of the map placed back to back : Doubled

Here is a picture of the are between the maps: Between

I may be the lord of stupid ideas. :]

A pretty good-looking map..we tried it yesterday in a little ctf-match...unfortunately we were just 4 players...way to less for such a big map...i dont know what to think about the gameplay...so i'll wait till you finished your ToDo-List and vote then...
but still its a nice job :)

wow windecker´s idea is brilliant :)

yep, like kaz already said, its a pretty good-looking map with tons of details. but! the gameplay isnt that good, there a some places u should improve in ur next update.
for example:
-the purple corridor behind the bases are quite useless in my opinion, maybe delelte them, or add one or two more ways out.
-in my opinion there are too less ways from the botton up two the flag (only one in front and one in the back) maybe add two more ways from the side?
-the areas beside the mainarea are too big and are hard two reach (there are only three entrance (the one in the middle and one of each side through this purple corridors...)if u want this areas more connected to the gameplay, add more ways in and out!
-i know that the itemsplacement are not fininsed yet, but u definetly have to add items on the sideareas.
-maybe change the yellowarmourspot... u cant go out of this water without a jump, maybe u should heighten the ground.

i hope my comment will be helpfull and not only a comment of a "noob" whos likes "cool lava sea's"

if u want, i will vote after the finalupadate.

Wow, this map is huge, and there already is so much fine detail to look at...you must have spent so much time on it, lol.

Ok, what i remember now from looking at it yesterday is of course the clip, the lighting and the general layout.

Clip was very unfinished, as stated already. There are many handrails and girders where you get stuck at, these should be clipped completely so nothing stops or interrupts the flow. And yes, the upper parts invite for camping which isn't a problem in my opinion though, rather leave them accessable and NOT clip them off, it's more than annoying if a player is able to see something which looks accessable and then it's not possible because of invisible walls, also stated above already. EDIT: just saw you wrote that you're still working on the clip.

Lighting is ok in most parts, only thing which made my eyes almost bleed was of course the purple light in the corridors, what a surprise now ;) Also there are often no visible light sources but these can easily be added later, of course.

Gameplay-wise i can't tell too much because i didn't playtest it, i just moved across the map and checked if i get stuck or the like, but i would remove at least some of the poles in the windows of the upper parts that are accessable in the towers by the jumppads inside (which are not easy to notice, btw). Put no ammo pickups near them though, rather just pistol ammo, so that no one gets tempted to stay there all the time.

I'm a player who loves to play online with as many people as possible, so this map will be a optimal map for deathmatch games, ffa or insta as well. So much to explore, so many ways to run around the map, it's just awesome already, so far. If some of these "problems" i mentioned get solved, i'll surely rate it up to 8 or maybe even 9, depending on what you will change or even add, for now i'll give it a good 7.

I really like it much already and it would be great if you finished it.

What an amazing map, so much detail! o.O I didn't find much errors except for a lot of complaints on getting stuck on the handrail clips; those should probably be completely removed for better play, and a packaging issue. I liked the lighting don't change it. Since the map is kind of open there could also be some better sniping spots. Otherwise I'm looking forward to the next update. 8/10

Updated.
I am not sure if I missed to put some items, I am very busy at work and I had not much time to work on the map. Btw I tried at least three times to add waypoints but bots won't work properly, so I give up since I think bots are pretty useless on a map like this one.
I lowered the ambient light, on some monitors that seems pretty nice, on others it looks a bit too dark. Let me know your opinions.
Wishes.

@suicizer: "to meister, why do you make maps that support camping while you hate it :S?"
1) because I stopped playing and I don't care anymore about campers
2) because there are a lot of people like you that loves to camp and snipe?

hm i think it is now a little bit too dark...if you re playing with default gamma(100) it is pretty dark...
and i think lights are completely missing on the top top of the pillars and platforms in the middle...
people which are new to the game and are playing with default settings that means no fullbright playermodels and stuff like that will never see people camping there i think...
i like that you deleted the YA pool..its easier to get out of there now/run out...

the flagrun through the middle on the middle platform of the pillars is still too easy to do...you can score in like 7 seconds without any pressure...
pls make this more difficult or something like that...

looking forward to the next update :)

KaZ

@kaz
yes, the lights are a bit too dark as I expected, I will take back the skylight of the previous version, since I am not going to add more lights, there are enough. Yes also for the "pillar way" of the flagrun, but at the moment I have no idea on what to do to solve that, I will think on it.
For the missing clipping I guessed that, I have no more time for sauer stuffs and it's very probably that I get the chance to forget something along the way.
As I said billion times I never play non-insta modes, I have no clue about weapon-placing; if someone want/can help me he's welcome (except suicizer of course ;) )

I really like the changed map add a darker sky box to fit this work art!

Sorry Zama, I really like this skybox, can't replace it ;)
KaZ, yes thanks, if you don't mind let me know which weapons and where, would be helpful to me. And about fairness/politeness it's a lost cause, some people here can't really get the point, old story.