CTF-CBP2-Bahera
Title: CTF-CBP2-Bahera
Author: Ed Duke-Cox
Game:Capture the Flag
Volume: 2
Lace banners flutter effortlessly in the light breeze, palm trees sway, and the magical Sands of Time swirl amidst your feet. You fear there won't be enough time for you to contemplate these detail and the surrounding Persian architecture, but not as much as you fear losing the match...
hal: Bahera has an arresting look with its Persian architecture and nightime sky. You have to admire this map for its execution of a very fresh theme. The author goes so far as to construct buildings that are beyond the play area and are only visible through the rear windows. It certainly helps give the map a sense of place as opposed to a flat skybox view.
It does have a few glaring problems, unfortunately. One of which is the short length between flags. This is exacerbated by the fact that you can drop right down into the flag rooms from the front door of each base.
Oddly enough, you can't translocate back up over the balconies that drop down into the flag room. I don't know whether or not this was a design decision, aimed at lengthening the run for defenders pursuing the flag carrier, but it seems to me that it would be better to close up the drop into the flag room from the front door, rather than unrealistically restrict the use of the translocator in that spot. There is no ceiling there, or no other force that looks as though it should block your beacon... it just drops limply back to the ground.
The other annoyance is the highly placed kill zone in the center area. There is a pit in the center, over which runs a series of crossing natural bridges. In the intersection of this series of bridges sits a small gazebo. Attempting a running jump, translocating from your base over this gazebo to the other base threshold, will result in your player model dipping its toes just below the lip of the pit and a quick death. It does effectively slow down translocation progress across the small map, but again, it seems like a sloppy fix for a layout flaw.
The map looks great and the layout is very interesting. The hallways are sort of spammy, so that rules out competitive play. The flaws, I think, will hurt public server acceptance. Hopefully we can see a tweaked version of this map in the future.
Zenny: Bahera is one of those maps that really focuses on gameplay and strategy. The visuals are nice, but they are definitely not the focus of the map. They merely serve to compliment the amazing gameplay. The caveways and the bridge between the two bases gameplay is similar to that of CTF-BridgeOfFate except it is more dynamic, which is always a good thing.
Raffi_B: Not a bad map, but not a good one. The layout is original, yet slightly boring. After learning my way around for the first time, I couldn’t help but notice how many different hallways there were. This is one of the problems with this map; the attack routes are far too structured, allowing no real room for movement or excitement. The main area was better, but the center pit could be a tad smaller.