FROM THE BLOG

CTF Days 5 and 6 – Shops!

Hey guys, while progress on CTF was stalled by other commitments, it’s back on track and cruising along nicely!

All of the CTF shops are drafted in-game and fully constructable. Everything in that screenshot was built by that builder, no !commands.

…Apologies for the awful example base layout, needed to cram all of them into the screenshot and it’s getting late ;^)

The shops function more or less as in classic, taking coins gained from combat to produce ammo.

At the moment, MM and I want to trial a flat upgrade structure – instead of getting scrolls etc, in CTF you will just need gold to build the more fancy shops, and special ammos will cost many more coins.

This is intended to keep CTF as simple to learn and as focussed on enjoyable competition as possible. If it proves to be too spammy or not provide enough strategic depth, we’ll probably resort to per-shop upgrades for special ammo.

I also want to talk quickly about CTF Maps.

While designing the mode I’ve had two experiences in mind – the fast and furious CTF of soldat, quake, tribes etc, as well as the more long term, epic, team dependent type like the Action! Unlimited server in classic.

The good news is, both of these experiences should be possible in the one new CTF mode with some clever map design.

The current map I’m using to test CTF can be found here – this is quite a bit smaller than your average CTF map in classic. However, it should be suitable for around 4v4 to 8v8 CTF.

Astute members will note that there are 3 flags per side on this map.

Larger maps with more flags give a natural way for server owners to scale their experience up or down. We’ll likely be taking submissions for well designed CTF maps once the mode is public.

That’s all for now, know that things with CTF are ticking along and should tentatively be ready for play in a week or two.

Max/Geti