Fan Made Maps: Saratov Slave Pits and Voodoo Mayhem

[Duke Davis II]

Welcome to this post. We have two new maps to introduce to you this month. The first takes us to the dark, post industrial wastelands of Giedi Prime. Saratov Slave Pits is a eight player, 256X256 size map. Its big and extremely detailed. Its so detailed that it took three or four hours just to lay down to bridges alone. It can be described as an islands map with a maze of bridges connecting each island. I designed the starting point islands, which are located on the sides of the map, with lots of room to build a base. Plus, there are three entrances to the base, one in the front and two on the sides. Make sure that you remember to defend those side entrances, because the computer loves to attack from all directions. There are also rally point islands next to the start islands were you can assemble your men and tanks so your base won

[erjin999]

First comment, well bloody done for doing this, whatever anyone says, it is great that you guys are doing this. I honestly havent played Emp in ages because of lack of time, I jump into quick FPS games. I would love to come back at some point and am dying to try out these maps!

Keep it up boys  ;) ;) I'm coming !  ;D

[alchemi2]

Saratov Slave Pits

A good non spice map, very atmospheric but a bit dark for my taste. Never really been a fan of non spice maps, too level a playing field for my taste but this is a good one.

Don't get much on-line time nowadays so these maps keep the one player time intresting, so keep up the good work guys. ;D

Voodoo Mayhem

A good quality map but not well thought out, on my 1st game both me and AI started on same rock! Harvesting same spice field is easy to dominate against computer.

A lot of map space is vacant with no reason to go there IE no spice fields.

Will have to try it against a human opponent to see if that makes a difference but as fan maps go, it's graphic quality excellent, map design medium, playability poor.

Sorry guys but you did ask for feedback. :-[

[Duke Davis II]

First, thanks Re-erjin for the words of encouragement. We hope that you get a chance to play someday soon. :)

Second, We appreciate your feedback, alchemi2.:D Unfortunately, we don't have control over where the human and AI players start. Next time you play, try 7 AI opponents instead on just one. One tactic that I like to use is the take over the neighboring base so I have two house tech to use.

Also, if you play on the Voodoo Mayhem LAN map without any humans, play against 7 AI opponents because the map might crash the game. I forgot to mention that in the original post.::)

[alchemi2]

Sorry sort of assumed it was a four player map with only four rocks, it was more involved vs 7 AI's and was fun too play.

Good on you guys for the quality of the map graphics and no doubt it took some effort and it was fun to play as new maps are but still only 5 out of 10 for playability.

It was however better than some of the original/official maps to play, so keep up the good work.

[Duke Davis II]

Glad to read that you like the map a little better. When Voodoo Daddy designed the map, he had the idea that the map would be used for online play with four to eight human players. But there are some people like me that never play online, so we posted two versions of the map. That way, no one would be left out of a new map. ;)

[Voodoo Daddy]

I just read your post Alchemi, I am glad to see you liked it a little better when you upped the A.I. to 7 opponents. I really don't like playing the A.I. myself, I don't think there is very much "I" in the A.I. However When I tried it against 7 it was kind of fun because you had to quickly boot one A.I off your rock and then fight the others, who are growing stronger while you are cleaning your rock.  Making a regular version of the map was kind of an afterthought really, after some discussion between Duke Davis and myself. I feel the number of Offline players is vastly larger than the online community, and that they might like a version of the maps we are making.

In my opinion, the two big shortcomings of this game are the inability to pick your rock (which this fixes) and the lack of easy communication (typing is a pain in the ass) In our LAN games we are either in the same room or in contact with our cell phone headsets (problem solved) being able to talk about the battle really adds a lot of fun.

I was wondering though, Have you played the Map in a Lan game or online? Besides our LAN games, I played a game with a player I had never seen before named sksmsjso (who is a really nice guy, and a good player by the way) We had a really good game that probably lasted about 45 minutes.

Anyway though, the thought behind the LAN map is to pick your allie, then pick your rock. that way you live or die together. You also see the map from the same perspective. How many times in a team game have you seen your allie type "HELP" due to a rush or something, and due to the distance or your own predicament, could not get there fast enough?

If you take a look at the map, you will notice that the spice is not in between every rock. it is between the 9 & 12 o:clock and the 3 & 6 o:clock rocks. This is so the Map can be played two ways. if the allies are on the afore-mentioned rocks, then it is a straight ahead battle with a well defended spice field between you. If you split the teams the other way, then it is "Mayhem" with an opponent on either side of you and your spice VERY vulnerable.

Personally I think this map or any other map is more fun when played against humans, just my opinion....

Hopefully one of these days we will run into each other online, and we can play a game.

Later,

Voodoo

[alchemi2]

Not had chance to play on-line lately but may get to do a 1vs1 with son, if we ever get same time off and will definitely use the map for that.

And i think your right the off line community is bigger so good on you two for keeping the maps coming, no easy task, especially with the quality your producing.

[Shadow_archmagi]

Umm... how exactly do I.. make the map work? I went to the "downloads" section and got the map packer and downloaded the map, but when I run the map packer its just a big grey box with a few holes for text in it, but I can't figure out how to make it display or DO anything... OH! I just noticed the "help" file in there.. feel like an idiot now. Well, I always was. Still, I'll appreciate it if you can give me a "map unpacking 4 dummies"

[Voodoo Daddy]

Ok, here it is - http://forum.dune2k.com/index.php?topic=10789.0 If you have any trouble just reply here.

Voodoo

[erjin999]

Umm... how exactly do I.. make the map work? I went to the "downloads" section and got the map packer and downloaded the map, but when I run the map packer its just a big grey box with a few holes for text in it, but I can't figure out how to make it display or DO anything... OH! I just noticed the "help" file in there.. feel like an idiot now. Well, I always was. Still, I'll appreciate it if you can give me a "map unpacking 4 dummies"

Admittedly, I think it could have been easier.

[Shadow_archmagi]

Aah, thank you O'mighty one.

Sadly however, Warcraft 3 has pulled me back.. yet again. It'll be awile before I can break its damned curse and return to my normal gaming. Stupid game is worse then nicotine... Maybe I should go download some Warcraft Patches...

That'll help, right?

[erjin999]

Unless you are on Emperor 1.09 you can download some Emperor:Battle for Dune patches :P