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DM to Greed ConversionThis tutorial presumes you have a good understanding of the editor. There are a few technical requirements to convert a map to work for Greed. There will also be suggestion on how to set up the map to work well for Greed. These are based on my perspective on what makes a good Greed map and are not required.
The Technical Requirements1. Open up the unpublished version of your map, select the “File” menu, then “Save As...”. Save the map into the Unpublished\CookedPC\CustomMaps directory in your “My Documents” UT 3 folder. It must have either “CTF-” or “VCTF-” as the prefix name depending on whether or not you will be adding vehicles. a. While you can open a published version of a stock map to convert it to a Greed map (as I have done this), you should never do this to another person’s map with out their approval first. 2. With your unpublished version open, select the “View” menu, the “World Properties”. Expand “WorldInfo”, then expand “GameTypesSupportedOnThisMap” 3. Select the red “X” button for the first three entries which should be the original DM game types. You should only have one left (UTCTFGame_Content or UTVehicleCTFGame_Content, depending on your map’s prefix). a. If you want to allow hover boards, but not other vehicles, you can make the prefix “VCTF-” and either not add any vehicles or remove any existing ones. If you do this, you should communicate clearly with potential players that there are no additional vehicles in the map. 4. You need to add a blue and red flag which are located in the Actor Browser (NavigationPoint -> Objective -> UTGameObjective -> UTCTFBase -> UTCTFBase_Content (whew!). 5. You need to add team based player starts which are also located in the Actor Browser (NavigationPoint -> PlayerStart -> UTTeamPlayerStart). a. By default, the team color is red. To change it to blue, open it’s properties, expand “UTTeamPlayerStart” and change the 1 to 0 (zero). 6. You can also add defensive points for the bots to use, which are located in the Actor Browser (NavigationPoint -< UTDefensePoint. a. Open up the defensive point’s properties and fill out the appropriate info in the “UTDefensePoint” section. 7. Be sure that there are paths going to the new flag bases. You can press the “P” key in the editor to verify this.
The Subjective “Requirements”The following are my personal guidelines in converting a DM map to Greed. 1. Flag placement: Since most DM maps aren’t symmetrical and thus are imbalanced (which is great for DM), it’s virtually impossible to try and make it balanced. I usually will place both flags in the same place, some where in the center of the map. a. If you place one flag, then rotate the other 180 degrees on the Z axis, then align the hole where the flag would rest in, when you play Greed, the red and blue effects will be going towards the same spot. There will only be one conduit (or flag base) displayed in game and the red and blue effects should be clear enough for players. b. While you can place more than one flag base for each team, the bots will only recognize the first flag base you place in your map for each team. c. For each flag, you should adjust some of it’s properties. In the “UTCTFBase” section, adjust the values for the “MidFieldHighZOffset, MidFieldLowZOffset”, and “NearBaseRadius”. These are used by the bots to communicate to you where the enemy is. If you place the flags in the middle, there is a greater chance most players will be near the flag most of the time. This is different than your traditional CTF flag placement. There fore, you should probably reduce the values. In the “UTGameObjective” section, adjust the value for “BaseRadius”. This is used by the announcer in case some one kills an enemy player that is carrying skulls and is in this radius. Again, if the flag is in the center, this value should be reduced to make more sense. 2. Player Starts: Similar to the flag placement suggestion, I would place these in pairs (one red, one blue) through out the map. You may want to keep them close to a weapon and possibly a couple near the flag. But by keeping them in these pairs, there is an “equal” chance for either team to spawn in the same place. If the map has a linear layout with flags place apart from each other, you can probably be able to place each team’s player starts around the each flag. 3. Weapons and pick ups: If there are any pick ups near the flag location, feel free to move them. For Greed maps, I believe there should be any or a limited amount of certain power ups/weapons. These include the shield belt, big health (100), Redeemer, more than one power up (Udamage, berserk, invisibility, etc.). I strongly believe there should never be an invulnerability power up. The reason why I say this is Greed is less about killing people and more about taking a skull and delivering that skull to a particular place. There fore, it shouldn’t be too easy to kill or not to be killed. In addition, the game adds game play adjustments based on how many skulls you are carrying (extra armor and Udamage). While it’s not a good thing to fall into an exact way of doing things, item placement should always be thought out to make sure it works for the game mode and especially your map’s layout. 4. File Name: I personally suggest adding “GRD” at the beginning of the map name if your level doesn’t follow the traditional CTF layout (as most DM maps won’t). For example “CTF-GRD-YourMapName”. This can communicate to the player that this map is meant to only be played in the Greed mode. 5. Level Preview Pics: If there is a another version of this map (DM, WAR, standard CTF), I suggest adding a conduit in your level preview picture to help the player understand this map is meant for the Greed game mode. Written by Odedge, with help from Diesalot. I keep a list of Greed maps in the Epic forums. Feel free to post there or email me if you have created a “Greed” map. The file needs to be hosted where any one can download the map. A thread was created to discuss mapping for the Greed game mode, check it out to get some additional ideas.
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