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haravikk wrote:You can achieve this by having scripted groups of enemies fighting each other, with the player's little band of troops in the middle trying to achieve some specific object. Kind of like what happens on the TFL level whose name I can't remember, where you're hunting a Shade, meanwhile forces controlled by the Deceiver and the Watcher are slugging it out here and there.

Seven gates?

It's been awhile but I think one of the Freedom! levels plays like that too (forget whether it's Freedom I or II). I remember going up this wooded hillside fighting all the way then having to go down to a castle/city wall where there's lots of fighting going on already. Fun stuff. (of course I could be misremembering or combining levels in my head)

Renwood wrote: Think "The Black Company"

*remembers croaker always leaving for big battles.*

I dunno though. I used to think I wanted big wild battles and such, but really things like sneaking, fleeing, or being outnumbered always seem to me to be more fun.

vinylrake wrote:Seven gates?

It's been awhile but I think one of the Freedom! levels plays like that too (forget whether it's Freedom I or II). I remember going up this wooded hillside fighting all the way then having to go down to a castle/city wall where there's lots of fighting going on already. Fun stuff. (of course I could be misremembering or combining levels in my head)

One of the CoD levels was like that too (the one where you rescue skrael) and was quite fun to play. Myth 2 has the level where you wake up the Deceiver, but its not the same as you have to race ahead of the mauls/soulless, else you'll be caught between them and the warlocks - just not enough room on that map to go leading groups of enemies together while you slip out of the way.

So I guess that's another part of what makes a good map - the influence of restrictive terrain on how you want the level to flow.

A Freedom level was fun stuff!??! Woah!
(I kind of hate Freedom at the moment, I'm unable to win it on Legendary for films purposes.)

I remember quite liking the 1861 map by Cydonian, but in places it lost interest for me. I get that feeling with pretty much any map where there's points at which I have to go 16x.

The B&G version of that TFL level (I'm having a brain fart and can't remember the name of either one!!) was kickass. I've only won it once, but it was good fun all the same.

I think the fault with Myth II levels was that they rushed Myth II. Nearly all of them have very little scenery and a simple design. 14 months = 60 weeks + 6(?) developers = 360 weeks of work / ~30 maps = 12 weeks of work per map. While these numbers may be off, I think I can say that lack of time wasn't the main reason why development was so rushed.

12 weeks of work is an insane amount of time to be able to work on a level of the size found in the original games--especially if it's your job. I'd almost call it the opposite of rushed. But I don't think that math works out. They'd need a lot of time working the engine before they could even begin level design, and they'd need a lot of time after the level was fully made to be able to test everything. Three weeks would easily be enough time for a full-time designer to produce a level as good as the good levels in M2 or better than the less good ones (three weeks for the basics, of course--like i said, there'd be a testing, adding, and polishing phase afterward). Hell, you could script Relic in an afternoon. So whether rushing was a problem, I couldn't say.

I'm considering what a "good" Willow Creek would have been like. Would it have had Ghasts at all? Or would it be mostly Ghasts with some Thralls, Soulless, and Ghols? It's a little tough, because you wouldn't want it to just play like Crow's Bridge. You'd want it to be something new, but still simple enough to be introductory. I think that's why they tried the Night of the Living Dead approach. Designing a better version would be a much more challenging problem than I might have thought at a glance. Not that it couldn't be done, with some careful consideration. Does anyone have any ideas?

Heh, IMHO Willow Creek was a very good level - it wasnt a simple mirror of CB from TFL, it was like 2nd part of training map, you could learn how to use basic units in combat against less dangerous undead ( still every1 could replay it on heroic or legendary of some challange ). Great idea for ppl who started adventerure with Myth from Myth II ( and maybe bit worse for TFL vets )
I definitly cant say that M2 levels are worse than TFL levels. They have to many fresh ideas and some maps or simply better than TFL maps ( and some are not ) TFL vs M2 ? Draw

Wow..great thread and I missed it.
As far as plugs.. Fall of Scales is great! 2 levels and you play it from both sides. A+ plug
Mauriac Tales TFL classic plug!
HOC is fun.
5 legends plug on both TFL and M2 are a blast..we just need a dark version. (replace arc with soul, dorf with fetch, zerks with myrms and ect.)

Most all TFL levels.

On M2..Baron since you have a task to complete..I love the hunt down and kill scenerio.
Gonen, since your pressured for time.
Well crap..all of them. Coop is just fun and relaxing.
I like beefed up enemy units.
Any water map with wights.
Also, all wights should be invisible!

What I don't like: New units or when people play with units. I like the regulars..don't mess with them! No need to make a warrior cap shoot fireballs. Anything over 30 minutes loses my attention.

I agree that Willow Creek is a terrible level, I don't even play it online/co-op. The levels I listed in one of my earlier posts are usually the ones I would play for co-op more often than the rest. There are plugins that are fun to play but I always have a hard time having favorites. And well sometimes you play a solo/coop a few times and forget about it in your plugins folder with those gigabytes worth of plugins.

A bit off topic perhaps but, I don't play TFL/vTFL much and I think TFL dwarves are terrible looking and as a unit. I mean who would throw motolovs straight up in a real battle? And overall I think the TFL color maps are of lower quality than M2 color maps in the color/texture area. M2 maps look more natural than some of the TFL ones. But TFL story is superior in which it feels more of a desperate gamble against the Dark than M2 ever does. And TFL levels are harder and some of interesting set of units which present some unique gameplay, and M2 has a few that do too.

Dio wrote:..As far as plugs.. Fall of Scales is great! 2 levels and you play it from both sides. A+ plug

hmmm... I think I might have misidentified Fall of Scales as "Soldiers of Tyre" earlier. If Scales is the two-castle level that's the one I meant.

And to be fair - although I said there was no reason storywise to play the same map from two points of view, from a strictly engaging playability viewpoint, I found Scales very challenging. I played it many many hours on both maps. It did a good job of balancing difficulty with challenge - e.g. when I lost I always had the feeling I could beat it the _next_ time I tried. Many many maps I walk away from in frustration when after struggling to survive and my ragged and severely damaged party reaches what I thought was the objective only to find something like a multi-trow welcoming party waiting for me.

William Wallet wrote:The B&G version of that TFL level (I'm having a brain fart and can't remember the name of either one!!) was kickass. I've only won it once, but it was good fun all the same.

Siege of Madrigal's what you're trying to remember. At one stage I put an easter egg in there too - happened when you kill all the peasants. Not sure if it made it through to the released version, but I thought it was funny at the time

From TFL, I pretty much liked every level (maybe an exception is Ambush at Devil's Overlook). My favorites are Crow's Bridge, Traitor's Grave, Watcher, Last Battle, Great Devoid, A Long Awaited Party and Shadow of the Mountain.

From Myth 2, I dunno. It felt that most maps played the same, so I don't have many favorites... I mean, where are my unusual unit selections? Most maps have dorfs, archs and meele. I think one that stands out is The Baron, being the only indoor map and having an assassin style objective. With Friends Like These is interesting too, because of the territories style gameplay and there are no dorfs. Maybe I should play all of them in vTFL to see if it becomes more fun, since I'm biased against M2 gameplay (I agree with what A-Red said earlier, both in his post and that document file that is on the Tain).

About the TFL dorfs comment earlier... Yeah, throwing bottles upward doesn't make sense and it was clearly an engine limitation (or intentional?) in Myth TFL (dorfs had to throw at max range always). But it could be very helpful in certain situations.

Imagine, for example, that your dorf is alone and pack of meele units is rushing it, probably zerks or myrms. What can happen (and I saw plenty in these years), is that when the meele units are near your dorf, he throws the molotov upwards. While it's in the air, the enemy zerks kill him and satchels are dropped on the ground. The bottle comes back, blow up the satchels and kill a good portion of the enemy units. Yes, the dorf died, but not in vain. Of course this is abusable by Trow, who generally just dance around dorfs waiting for them to suicided. In Myth 2 you have to control-click behind the meele and I don't remember seeing the satchels blow up when the dorf dies.

Ever since I started this game, I thought there should be a suicidal dorf. If I was surrounded and knew I was going to die..I would light my backpack up right when they got to me. Take some of the bastards with me.

I know TFL dwarves can be useful but that wasn't my point. You should give some of the M2 levels a second chance. Perhaps best to play them in coop if you see someone hosting, so you get the feel for it as a team member.

Actually it's impossible for me to give a second chance to the M2 levels... because I already gave them like 100.
I'm from the =IX=, which is basically a COOP order. I've played the M2 levels countless times on coop, just ask Tireces (hey Tir!).
I'm not saying they are bad, they aren't memorable like the TFL ones (to me at least).