RPG Carida Academy

Description
Seeing as this is the second release of a map, I'll quote the review of the previous release to start.

[quote]You start off in a courtyard of sorts with a landing pad and various consoles and whatnot. On the landing pad is the much beloved Republic Gunship, but this is no ordinary gunship brush. When walk into the gunship's hatch it teleports you to another landing pad with the same gunship and a very different looking planet. The first is swampy and this is sandy, but each is tied together with the gunship. The use of the gunship to travel back and forth between two parts of the map is a really neat mechanic and makes you feel like you're being dropped off for a mission or were just ferried back to base.

The two parts of the map are a military base and a scary warehouse that looks perfect for urban combat. The warehouse has very nice lighting and a really dark atmosphere, but something I noticed was that while the lighting was good, it was still not coming from a source. Try adding some lamps into your next update. The warehouse contains a bunch of old boxes and shelves and the occasional prefab-barrier that looks like it was set up as a defense. It's pretty easy to imagine going in with a squad of soldiers and storming the building.

The other half of the map is the military base and it is a pretty nice looking base. It has everything from lobbies to offices to firing ranges. There's even a firing range for normal weapons and then a firing range for long ranged (Sniper rifle) weapons. Every officer's office looks very nice and a few of them even have lobbies outside of them. The barracks might be my favorite part of the map with long rows of bunks with cool cyan lights shining at their heads; there's even a door that leads to a shower room, though there's no toilets anywhere which confuses me. There's also a medbay and several conference rooms as well as a storage room with plenty of weapons to pick up. The base layout was a bit confusing, though, so it would be nice to have maybe some holographic signs or something to point people toward the room they want to go to.

The map makes extensive use of Inyri's KotOR models and not only does it add an air of familiarity to the map, but it also makes it just look so much nicer and more varied instead of JK3 boxes. The music on the map is the track "Prologue" from the Republic Commando soundtrack, which I love; "Prologue" is my favorite track from any Star Wars game by far. It fits perfectly with the map as it feels militaristic and has both ups and downs to it.[/quote]

This second version is quite an improvement over the previous version in some areas, but a few new things have come to my attention. Let's start with the good things. First off, there are holographic signs in the actual base that tell you what is what, so no more wandering around running through each door one at a time trying to find a specific room. Second off, the map no longer only consists of the base and the warehouse! The base now contains an outer door which will lead you to the main entry way which is confined, sandy area complete with defensive trenches, barricades, and turrets. This then leads to [i]another[/i] giant door which will teleport you to the town that the author has created. This town is what you expect out of a town in Jedi Knight 3; it has a cantina, a medical center, a house, a gun/tool shop, etc.

Continue on through the town and you reach a door which teleports you to a stone hollow somewhere, probably in the mountains. It was a bit jarring to turn around and look at where I came from and see [i]a drop off the face of the earth.[/i] My advice, rather than just having an empty hole where you came in, have the teleport in the same place but in the background map in a stone path that winds around out of sight so it looks like you climbed up here or down here or wherever here is. Enter the cave and you'll find a very appropriately lit, dark, gloomy stone cave. With a rancor in it. There are a few atmospheric touches such as a flickering light or some bones on the ground but other than that the cave is largely empty.

The warehouse also has some additions which basically include a very linear path to a generator room of some sort. Not much to say about it, though it is interesting to find. The warehouse did have lights this time around, however, rather than just eerie lights popping out of nowhere. A good improvement.

Now on to the bad and the suggestions. First off, there were a few brushing (Caulking? I don't know this crazy terminology) errors around the map which were a bit jarring. However, I came to realize something as I ran through this whole area. Yes, it is an Imperial military base and no, it doesn't look bad, but... it doesn't look [i]good[/i] either. While nothing looks bad or hurts the eye, there is nothing special about the graphical presentation of this map either. The architecture, once you get to looking at it, is very blocky. Everything is blocky, from benches to desks, walkways to walls, rooftops to dirt on the ground. Aside from that, the map uses the same selection of gray, blocky, metallic textures everywhere. Even the caves are gray stone. Again, it doesn't look bad but it doesn't look good either; it simply feels like it's there. Try to rough out and round out the edges and throw in some more colors and more detailed, varying textures to make the world look lived in and real. Also, think about doing more with the skyboxes. As of now they are just the sky, nothing more, which seems a bit odd. Wouldn't you see the military base in the distance, or the city in the distance, or [i]something[/i] other than sky? Or outside the cave, wouldn't you see mountains or trees or something?

Now that brings me to my next point: the map feels cramped. Everywhere you go you are boxed in whether it's by the walls of a room, giant metal walls around a whole area, or stone walls. Nothing is open, which can feel odd. Open up some areas! Have a couple stone paths going out from the cave area that lead to cliffs or something; make the defensive trench area spread out all around the walls of the base - have an electric fence separate the entryway from the outer walls but make it so you can see out. Take away the claustrophobic feel from every single area in the map!

Overall though a worthy endeavor; even if much more was opened to my eyes to be improved this time around, that doesn't mean it's a bad map. In fact this should be pretty fun to roleplay on.

~Laam'inui