Beggars Canyon

Description
"Beggar's Canyon" is a map by CressAlbane that lives up to its name, in the fact that it is indeed a canyon.

The approach to design here I'm not terribly fond of - the map is, as mentioned, a canyon. Overlooking the single CP held by the defending team at the bottom of the canyon are several CPs belonging to the attacking team with clear shots down at the defending team. This is not a terribly balanced design, and while I did read that the author wrote it was not supposed to "play like a normal map," this kind of map really only fits when you can force the player onto the defending team. As a campaign mission, maybe, but as a conquest map it doesn't pass muster.

A couple issues I noticed - first and foremost the use of the terrain tool needs work. Creating a steep canyon with just terrain is difficult, since you will almost always see what you see here: sharp edges that stretch terrain textures and look sloppy. I think the best way to do something like this is to use actual meshes. The blockiness of the terrain doesn't stop at the cliff faces either, there are several places where it doesn't look like terrain smoothing was used at all.

The second issue was the overlapping of terrain textures that causes interference in the overlap and makes a clear delineation between one texture and another. Keep in mind that you can't try to blend more than two textures together, any more and you will get this error.

In any case, not the best map, but it's definitely a small map size, which is a nice plus. If it sounds interesting, give it a try.

-Mav