At long last, after two terms (that’s four months) of work, I’m proud to present the Beta version of DM-Reverence, an Unreal Tournament 3 space-themed Deathmatch map.

Now including custom-made art assets, this version of the map represents my final project submission at Worcester Polytechnic Institute — it is, quite literally, the last school project I worked on before graduating college. It is the culmination of an Independant Study Project I designed, and is, without a shadow of a doubt, among the coolest things I got to do for academic credit at WPI.

However, just because this is what I submitted doesn’t mean it’s the final version of DM-Reverence — far from it. As much as I’ve learned, I’ve also learned just how far I still have to go to turn the level from a decent first map into a blockbuster experience, and I intend to keep working towards that goal. Until then, however, there’s still the Beta, and it’s now available for download.

As always, please let me know what you think of the map — all criticism, positive and negative, is good criticism, and can only help me make the map better.

[After the break: three more screenshots, and a copy of the readme.] 

*****************************************************
*                 DM-ReverenceBeta                  *
*****************************************************

-----------------------------------------------------
                    General Info
-----------------------------------------------------

Title:    Reverence
Filename: DM-ReverenceBeta.zip
Author:   Dan "Daphinicus" Tennant
Email:    dantennant@gmail.com
Website:  http://www.DanTennant.com
Version:  Beta 1.0
Credits:  Professor Joshua Rosenstock (Advisor)
          Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong (Tutorials)
          Daniel "DC" Corfman (Level Title)
          Nicolas "Nunuk" Bouvier (Inspiration)

-----------------------------------------------------
                   Author's Notes
-----------------------------------------------------

Reverence is a space-themed Deathmatch map, currently
under development for Unreal Tournament 3. It began
as an academic assignment, as part of an Independant
Study Project (ISP) at Worcester Polytechnic
Institute (WPI). The project involved designing,
constructing, playtesting, tweaking, and producing
and implementing the art assets for a UT3 level over
the course of a semester.

This Beta version of the map represents the
culmination of that semester of work: fully playable
with custom art assets.

Inspiration for Reverence came from Nicolas "Nunuk"
Bouvier (http://nunuk.planetquake.gamespy.com), whose
custom maps for Quake 3 Arena often incorporated
gimmicked jumppads and unusual layouts in so-called
"space" maps. While UT3 does contain a handful of
maps set in space, my goal was to try to replicate
the frantic, precarious feel of Quake 3 space maps in
UT3's next-generation environment.

Please remember that Reverence in currently in Beta,
and as such is an ongoing labor of love. Any and all
feedback is welcome, and can be either emailed to me
or posted as a comment on my blog at
http://www.DanTennant.com.

-----------------------------------------------------
                     Known Bugs
-----------------------------------------------------

- Bots do not attempt to retrieve the UDamage powerup
  when it spawns. Workaround in development.

- Bots are highly unlikely to make use of the four
  curved jumppads to expediently move around the map.
  This is the result of the way the curvature was
  implimented. I'm trying to find a solution.

- The curved jumppads, while functional, will still
  occasionally bug and send players flying into deep
  space. This usually happens when the game hiccups
  in the middle of the curve. Again, I'm trying to
  find a solution.

NOTE: Players can be shot off trajectory while in the
middle of curves by skilled opponents. This is
intentional, as the curves are the fastest routes of
travel around the map. An element of risk was
maintained to balance the reward.

-----------------------------------------------------
                    Installation
-----------------------------------------------------

Unzip all files in DM-ReverenceBeta.zip to the
following folder:

  %My Documents%\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\
  UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps\

If the directory does not exist, create it manually.
Then, from within UT3, select the level in a
Multiplayer or Instant Action game.

-----------------------------------------------------
               Copyright & Permissions
-----------------------------------------------------

This level is copyright Dan Tennant, 2009.

Authors MAY NOT use this level as a base to build
additional levels without explicit permission from
the original author, Dan Tennant. Any bug fixes,
tweaks, or other changes may only be implemented by
the original author. No other person or party is
allowed to release a modified version of this map
without the author's express permission.

You MAY NOT charge any money for this map or any of
its embedded content.

You MAY distribute this level through any electronic
media (internet (web/ftp), FIDO, local BBS, Magazine
coverdisk etc.), provided you include this readme
file.

All other trademarks and trade names, including but
not limited to the Unreal Tournament brand and
artistic assets, are the properties of their
respective owners.

-----------------------------------------------------

If you’ve ever wanted to make a map, I know exactly how you feel. I’ve wanted to mold a Deathmatch level with my own hands for over two years. In fact, I wanted to do it so much that I convinced one of my professors to advise a for-credit project that would let me design, from the ground up, my very own level for Unreal Tournament 3.

If you feel like playing the first open Alpha of that level, take a look at my last blog entry — it’s got download links to everything you’ll need. But if you, like me, want to make maps almost more than you want to play them, perhaps you’ll be interested in something else.

I’ve written up a sort of meta-tutorial for level designers who are just starting out in UnrealEd. It’s not a step-by-step how-to, but rather an overview of the mentality you should have as you work through your first map. Now, granted, I’m no expert mapper, but I’ve learned a lot in the past eight weeks, and I’ll continue to learn more over the next eight. Just as my map remains incomplete, so does this tutorial. But it, like the map, will keep growing, and in the interim, you might just find a couple thoughts in there worth filing away in the back of your mind.

Interested? Awesome. Take a look at it, then, and feel free to tell me what you think!

Well folks, it’s official: my map-in-progress for Unreal Tournament 3, DM-Reverence, has finally reached the Alpha stage. Although it doesn’t have any custom art assets in yet, it’s been lovingly scuplted, lightly tested, and heavily tweaked, and is ready for anyone with UT3 to download it and give it a whirl.

It being an Alpha, there are still several bugs that I haven’t been able to iron out just yet, but they’re not completely map-breaking. The readme file has the details. For now, feel free to download and play the map, and either comment here or e-mail me your feedback!

Later on tonight, I’ll be posting a complete overview of how I’ve taken the map from empty nothingness to fully playable over the past term, complete with screenshots and some tips for budding level designers that might save you some time I wasted.

[Update: "Complete overview" was a stupid thing to say, and I apologize. It is, in fact, the first part of my complete overview, which will be added to over the course of the coming week. By this Saturday, March 7, it should be complete.]

[After the break: two more screenshots, and a copy of the readme.] 

*****************************************************
*                DM-ReverenceAlpha1                 *
*****************************************************

-----------------------------------------------------
                    General Info
-----------------------------------------------------

Title:    Reverence
Filename: DM-ReverenceAlpha1.zip
Author:   Dan "Daphinicus" Tennant
Email:    dantennant@gmail.com
Website:  http://www.DanTennant.com
Version:  Alpha 1.0
Credits:  Professor Joshua Rosenstock (Advisor)
          Sjoerd "Hourences" De Jong (Tutorials)
          Daniel "DC" Corfman (Level Title)
          Nicolas "Nunuk" Bouvier (Inspiration)

-----------------------------------------------------
                   Author's Notes
-----------------------------------------------------

Reverence is a space-themed deathmatch map, currently
under development for Unreal Tournament 3 as part of
an Independant Study Project (ISP) for academic
credit at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).
The project involves designing, constructing,
playtesting, tweaking, and producing and implementing
the art assets for a UT3 level over the course of a
semester. This Alpha version of the map represents
the culmination of the first half of the semester:
fully playable, but lacking custom art assets.

Inspiration for Reverence came from Nicolas "Nunuk"
Bouvier (http://nunuk.planetquake.gamespy.com), whose
custom maps for Quake 3 Arena often incorporated
gimmicked jumppads and unusual layouts in so-called
"space" maps. While UT3 does contain a handful of
maps set in space, my goal was to try to replicate
the frantic, precarious feel of Quake 3 space maps in
UT3's next-generation environment.

Please remember that Reverence in currently in Alpha,
and as such in incomplete. Any and all feedback is
welcome, and can be either emailed to me or posted
as a comment on my blog at http://www.DanTennant.com.

-----------------------------------------------------
                     Known Bugs
-----------------------------------------------------

- Bots do not attempt to retrieve the UDamage powerup
  when it spawns. Workaround in development.

- Bots are highly unlikely to make use of the four
  curved jumppads to expediently move around the map.
  This is the result of the way the curvature was
  implimented. I'm trying to find a solution.

- The curved jumppads, while functional, will still
  occasionally bug and send players flying into deep
  space. This usually happens when the game hiccups
  in the middle of the curve. Again, I'm trying to
  find a solution.

NOTE: Players can be shot off trajectory while in the
middle of curves. This is intentional, as the curves
are the fastest routes of travel around the map, an
element of risk was maintained to balance the reward.

-----------------------------------------------------
                    Installation
-----------------------------------------------------

Unzip all files in DM-ReverenceAlpha1.zip to the
following folder:

  %My Documents%\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3\
  UTGame\Published\CookedPC\CustomMaps\

If the directory does not exist, create it manually.
Then, from in UT3, select the level in a Multiplayer
or Instant Action game.

-----------------------------------------------------
               Copyright & Permissions
-----------------------------------------------------

This level is copyright Dan Tennant, 2009.

Authors MAY NOT use this level as a base to build
additional levels without explicit permission from
the original author, Dan Tennant. Any bug fixes,
tweaks, or other changes may only be implemented by
the original author. No other person or party is
allowed to release a modified version of this map
without the author's express permission.

You MAY NOT charge any money for this map or any of
its embedded content.

You MAY distribute this level through any electronic
media (internet (web/ftp), FIDO, local BBS, Magazine
coverdisk etc.), provided you include this readme
file.

All other trademarks and trade names, including but
not limited to the Unreal Tournament brand and
artistic assets, are the properties of their
respective owners.

-----------------------------------------------------

Gee's book, bane of Dean's class

For those of you who have never taken a course taught by Dean O’Donnell, it’s worth noting that the man runs some fairly awesome classrooms. I’ve been ridiculed many a time for coming off a little too fanboyish of WPI’s resident storytelling professor, but one could do worse in finding a career mentor. Dean is unabashedly foul-mouthed, brutally honest, and surprisingly outgoing, and he commands the hearts and minds of his students because of it.

Among his repertoire, the Professor teaches a course called Social Issues in Interactive Media and Games. It shares a requirement with another social/ethics course in WPI’s IMGD program, but everyone goes to Dean’s class if they can. The discussions themselves are worth the price of tuition, and his periodical tangents are just an added bonus.

The topic of today’s discussion seemed, at first glance, fairly ho-hum. The assigned reading by James Paul Gee — whom ludologists and unhappy IMGD majors will recognize as the author of What Videogames Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy – covered one of the book’s latter chapters on cultural models. As a lead into a broader discussion of the ways we tend to perceive behavior, Gee takes the time to put on paper something us gamers have long known, but rarely thought about: that depending on the game in question, a player can approach gameplay choices in one of two ways:

1. The player can base his gameplay decisions on the moral and ethical rules laid down by society, or
2. he can base them on the moral and ethical rules implied by the game itself.

Now, a BioWare game like Mass Effect is unquestionably an Option 1 game. Players can choose to become either ‘paragons’ or ‘renegades’ by applying their own moral compasses to decision-making. Sure, a person who is inherently good can still have fun playing an evil character, but doing so triggers the same compass. We are given moral choices, we select from among them. Decisions, decisions.

On the other hand, some games don’t provide such obvious forks in the road. The example that came up in-class was Bullfrog’s Dungeon Keeper, in which the moral rules implied by the game place you squarely in the shoes of an evil protagonist. If I were to follow Option 1 and decide to uphold my personal ethics, I’d be forced to quit — a road less travelled, to be sure, but not particularly entertaining. All I can do is make decisions that benefit the protagonist so I can keep going, making Dungeon Keeper an Option 2 game.

At least, that’s the Gee perspective.

Naturally, being a place where discussion is encouraged, Dean’s classroom couldn’t help but chime in. One student in particular brought up the fact that the choices provided in BioWare games (and those like them, of course) don’t actually result in a significant change to the game experience. As he put it (and I’m paraphrasing), “I can either be a good bad-ass or an evil bad-ass, but I’m still a bad-ass.”  The player still kills almost everything in sight. The level of violence in the game doesn’t change just because you choose to go one way or the other, and paragons experience the exact same gameplay content as renegades, with only (relatively) minor shifts in conversations and cutscenes between them.

The student was finding it fairly difficult to articulate his thoughts, and even Dean was having a hard time trying to see what his point was. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I think (though I obviously can’t be 100% sure) I’ve nailed it down to this: Games that ostensibly provide the player with ethical choices do nothing of the sort, because there’s no long-term consequence. There’s no meaningful moral decision to be made in an Option 1 game, so Option 1 games, as defined by Gee, don’t really exist.

In case you hadn’t guessed yet: Yes, I’m about to argue the exact opposite.

Being someone that refuses to play a renegade in Mass Effect or a Dark Jedi in KOTOR, it goes without saying that I don’t agree with the student’s perspective. I choose the path of righteousness every time, because I can’t help but see my moral values mapped onto virtual sprites and polygons. What’s more, I’ll play Dungeon Keeper gleefully. But when given the choice, I’ll always take the high road.

Yeah, I know, it's DK2. It's prettier to look at, you know.

And therein lies the rub. I will still play Dungeon Keeper. I will still cull Stratholme as Arthas in Warcraft III. I have no problem doing so, because at those points in time, the bad guy is the protagonist, and I’m doing what I need to do to complete the game and win. Here’s the thing, though: in Dungeon Keeper, I’ll do my best to keep my imps well-fed with poultry sacrifices. I’ll do my damndest to keep all my ghoul minions in Stratholme alive.

Despite the fact that the protagonist is evil, I’ll still overlay my moral values onto the situation, doing what I can to support and protect those for whom I am directly responsible.

From my perspective, I can’t help but see all games as Option 1 games. The fact that we play the protagonist does not force us to play from their moral perspective; on the contrary, it forces us to overlay our own moral perspectives onto their situations, ‘good’ or ‘evil’. We don’t play an evil dungeon keeper in because that’s the role we’re given; we play it because we map our moral code onto the keeper’s situation, finding the true good in his work. We’re not killing heroes because they’re the good guys; we’re killing them because they’re trying to drive us from our home.

Let’s be clear: I’m not trying to shove my foot up Gee’s rear-end. In fact, Gee’s a surprisingly smart guy, he makes a heck of a lot of keen observations, and there’s a reason he’s required reading in Dean’s class. My point is that our moral values come into play in every situation we encounter in life, including games where we’re playing the ‘bad guy’ protagonist. It’s worth remembering, because eventually our actions in games start to affect other people — and when that happens, morality isn’t just something worth pondering. It becomes every bit as important in games as it is in real life, because the consequences of our actions are just as dire.

But that’s a discussion for next time.

Daniel was not happy at this point in time.

However, thanks to GoDaddy, I restored yesterday’s copies of the theme files. Problem solved. GoDaddy, you rock all.

A bit of background:

For the past three months, I’ve been working on my MQP — WPI terminology for “senior thesis.” It’s my second (my first was awesome, but it doesn’t apply here), and it’s been a pain.

Behold! 'Tis a checklist.

To be fair, I picked my topic. In fact, I basically designed the entire project. I love gaming magazines, and I figured that if I could get academic credit for making one, well, that would be fairly awesome. So I outlined a project that had me researching five major gaming magazines (EGM, GamePro, Game Informer, Edge, and PC Gamer), giving me a nice balance of demographics, design styles, content, et cetera. I would quantify (read: make a neat little checklist of) every element that I could find in each and put them together into a pretty little graph. That way, my rhetorically-minded Professor could giggle with glee at my nice, categorized findings, and I could be spending time tossing this and that together into my own little prototype.

I was quite proud of myself and the project I designed. The thing is, it was pretty stupid. I really had no concept of where the gaming magazine industry was.

I did not, for instance, comprehend the business side of magazine distribution, or the fact that if a magazine’s publisher isn’t burning money in what amounts to a really big furnace out back, then it doesn’t matter how awesome your editorial staff is or how sweet your design looks. The level of fail will be immesurable with all but the very biggest of teaspoons. You know why. Magazines are dying.

Granted, as someone who wants, really badly, to make a gaming magazine of uberness, seeing the writing on the proverbial wall took some help. Jeff Green and Dan Hsu had to shout from the rooftops of their respective blogs before I understood why magazines just won’t work, and how truly immaterial my senior thesis really was. Saying that it was rather sobering is something of an understatement.

Fortunately, listening to the first episode of A Life Well Wasted reminded me of the levels of awesome to which gaming magazines can aspire. Once in a while, we could all use reminers of why we love what we love, and hearing the illustrious alumni of EGM (which could best be described as the soul of games journalism) recall why they first got into the industry was as cathartic as its state is depressing.

I’ve already gone back through my thesis once and reshaped it, explaning why the heck I’m still working towards a prototype of a magazine when magazines are creaking their ways through retirement homes with pictures of their electronic grandsons in their pockets. But the fact is, though I’ll graduate in May with a hefty discussion of the valuable qualities of print under my belt, I’m joining the ranks of the many who are decrying the medium.

It’s a sad day, because like the many tens of thousands out there who grew up reading GamePro, PC Gamer, and EGM, I adore print. I love the smell of a new issue in my hands as I’m flipping through the pages. I love the rich color and shiny gloss. And, more than anything, I love (and miss!) the quality. I’m sick and tired of websites that are pimping the Top 10 Nude Babes of Gaming next to their not-so-in-depth feature on the Most Awesomest Titles of Who Gives a Damn. Where the heck are the columns? Where are the quality letters that aren’t buried in comments sections next to ZoobityBop_Bob and his recitations on the glory of That Game He Played Last Night? Where’s the top-notch iPhone integration so I can read on the go, just like I used to do with magazines?

Sure, if you happen to be reading this and know of sites that are eschewing quantity for quality, let me know and I’ll send them my resume. But are my perceptions wrong? Is it not the case that 9 sites out of 10 are appealing to the lowest common denominator, and journalists who are in my position need to start thinking up some new ideas? Magazines offer quality, reliability, and a level of respectability that most sites just don’t have. I know I’m not the only one who wants to see that come to the web.

Oh, and I could use a good reason to keep working my butt off on this thesis. Anyone? You’re going to need to shout, the crickets can get pretty loud.

[Edit: I'm leaving it in. You would too, you know. Sentimental value and all that.]