Date			: April 18, 2000

================================================================================

Title			: Fenway Park
Filename		: CTF-Fenway.unr

Author			: JED,I
E-mail Address		: jedi@clarityconnect.com
Website			: http://people2.clarityconnect.com/webpages5/jedi

Description		: Unreal Tournament capture the flag map

CTF-Fenway is a large capture the flag map for 12 to 18 players. 18 players is, of course, the perfect number of players. As its name suggests, it is based on the layout of Fenway Park in Boston. The Park's most prominent feature, the Green Monster, should easily be recognized by any baseball fan.

When Major Killer asked me to do a stadium map for UT in January, I admit I was a little skeptical about how well a stadium would translate to UT. But once I got started, I soon discovered that it made a very good setting for a team game, and the UT engine was capable of making a stadium to scale. So CTF-Fenway was born.

I chose Fenway Park as the model since it is one of the most easily recognizable stadiums in sports. CTF-Fenway is approximately the same scale as the real Fenway Park, which is to say it makes a quite large UT map. Fans of Fenway Park will notice it is not an exact replica. I had to simplify the stadium to reduce the polygon count to something manageable by most computers. For example, the upper decks are missing, there are no support posts for the roof and the field wall is simplified. And the seats are just flat textures, but to actually model them would have made the map unplayable. They look good from a distance, though. But the presence of the Green Monster makes it easy to tell which park the map is based on.

Even with all the simplifications, the field itself still generates too many polygons and nodes for slower systems. Testers with fast systems had no trouble with it, and it's not any higher than many other maps. But slower systems will run slowly when out on the field, particularly if the player is high in the stands looking out over the rest of the map. So if you have a system that runs slowly when you are out on the field, try staying indoors. The map is made so you can play it without ever going out onto the field. If you do that, the polygon count will always remain below 100 and the map should play fine. Also, you should not see too much slowdown if you limit your forays on the field to the area between the dugouts. I bring this up mainly because I have always tried to make maps with low enough polygon counts to be playable by anyone. I sacrificed that principle a little to get the results I was looking for in this map.

The bots play the map quite well, though there are certain areas they will not go to unless you tell them to. The roof is one. They will not go there by themselves (the doorway to the roof stairs is too narrow and they tend not to want to use that path), but often they will follow a player up there. To get the bots to use the sniping posts in the luxury boxes, you have to order several of them to defend the base. Then, after a while, one will usually take up a sniping position there. It's a fairly low priority defensive position, which is why you have to order several bots to defend to get one to go there. But once there, they do a nice job controlling the field and stopping the other team's bots from crossing.

The outside of the stadium is quite bland and there is nothing there of interest to players except the way back into the stadium. That is intentional. The outside of the map is really just there to catch players who fall off the roof. I suppose a long trip back to the inside of the stadium is sufficient penalty for being uncoordinated enough to actually fall off. But the roof does make a nice sniping area for those so inclined.

There is at least one Easter egg on the map, and a couple of other little things that are not necessarily obvious. Try not to cheat and take a peek at it in UnrealEd to find the Easter egg. It is a tough one to find and the visual cue is not easy to spot. And it is just an Easter egg; if you find it, it will have no effect on play at all (though it is fun).

Since I did this map for the CombatWorld website, you'll find some advertising for the site in the map. I tried to make this blend in naturally by putting it where you'd normally see ads in a real stadium. And from what I have seen, there are a lot fewer ads in CTF-Fenway than in any real stadium.

There are a number of new textures included with the map. They are embedded in the map under MyLevel. Most of them were made by myself with a few exceptions. Most are completely new, but some are modified UT textures. The Gutz poster in the red locker room was made by Major Killer. The credit for the picture in the red manager's office also goes to Major Killer as do the CombatWorld ads. The building textures (they're all in a sub-group under MyLevel) are all from those released by the people at Crack.com from the Golgotha project. The ones I included were just a small sampling of the textures they made freely available. So they deserve credit for those. I hope I didn't forget anyone here, but if I have, my apologies. If you want to use any of the textures I made for any reason, just ask first. The building textures anyone is free to use who wants to, even without asking, since they were made freely available on the net and I just resized and reduced color as needed.

All positive feedback and constructive criticism is welcome. As always, any and all flames go into the anal-retentive file for later deletion.

Other Maps		: Ware Thee Well (Q2 DM), Wishing Well (Q2 DM), Middle Kingdom (Q2 DM),
			  Cold as Ice (Q2 DM), Let's Make a Deal (Q2 DM), The Lair (Q2 DM),
			  By Any Other Name... (UT DM)
            
Credits			: Epic Games for Unreal Tournament (duh)
                 	  POD and Major Killer for review and playtesting

Thanks to		: All the folks in the credits (duh again)
			  Anyone who actually plays this puppy

================================================================================

*{ Installation }*

1) Unzip CTF-Fenway.zip into the Unreal Tournament\maps folder. Alternatively, you can unzip it anywhere, right click on CTF-Fenway.unr in Windows Explorer, and then select "Play this Unreal Level."

2) Start Unreal Tournament, set up a multiplayer or practice CTF game and select CTF-Fenway from the map list.

================================================================================

*{ Play Information }*

Assault:		: No
Capture the Flag:	: Yes
Deathmatch		: No
Domination		: No

Recommended Players	: 12-18
Player Starts           : Shoot, I forgot, 24 I think, 12 per team
New Sounds              : No
New Textures/Graphics   : Yes


*{ Construction }*

Base                    : New level
Editor                  : UnrealEd
Build Time              : About two months of off and on work
Build System            : P2 350, 128MB RAM

*{ Copyright/Legal Stuff }*

This map, CTF-Fenway.unr, and the contents of the archive, CTF-Fenway.zip, is (c) by JED,I, 2000.

You may distribute this file freely provided you include this text file, CTF-Fenway.txt, and leave the archive, CTF-Fenway.zip, and all its contents intact. Any commercial use is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.