A Path Beyond RA_ShallowGrave

[ChopBam]

Should we remake the map or not? Opinions in the community seem to be pretty divided on the issue. Some say it wasn't a good map, others loved it for the nostalgia. With a remake, we can fix some of the smaller issues, but some say the biggest issue is that the overall design is bad.

A lake in the middle, with naval combat. Run around the edges of said lake to reach the enemy base with tanks.

Original RA map:

Rough concept:

There are all sorts of screenshots and memories floating around that I don't have the time to scrounge around and find, but I'm sure you guys get the idea.

Vote now!!

[Killing_You]

ShallowGrave would be a neat addition, but it's not as high on my list of "remaster wants" as TheWoodsToday or APathBeyond.

[thedisclaimitory]

well I want to know what all these maps wer eif some one can find images or somthing to show me because I dont know all the maps that were taken from apb the ones I do know were the woods today and the A path beyond map I forgot what the map bunkers was. Question was shallow grave that cemetery tdm map

[ChopBam]

TheWoodsToday seems popular. Here are some 3ds max shots of old, untextured terrain from TWT (missing trees as well):

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[CMDBob]

Here's some quick screenshots I've taken of RA_Bunkers and RA_TheWoodsToday.

Oh, and here's a quick couple of shots from Shallow Grave, showing the gem island in the middle (that's missing from the original RA map), for reference.

My own thoughts? I do quite like Shallow Grave, but I do also love The Woods Today, and with some nice work could be something really nice.

[thedisclaimitory]

Just now, CMDBob said:

Here's some quick screenshots I've taken of RA_Bunkers and RA_TheWoodsToday.

Oh, and here's a quick couple of shots from Shallow Grave, showing the gem island in the middle (that's missing from the original RA map), for reference.

My own thoughts? I do quite like Shallow Grave, but I do also love The Woods Today, and with some nice work could be something really nice.

now I remember thanks but one map though I want to look at it was the a new city map

[ChopBam]

Shallow Grave:

Bunkers:

A Path Beyond:

[ChopBam]

36 minutes ago, thedisclaimitory said:

now I remember thanks but one map though I want to look at it was the a new city map

Are you referring to this one?

[thedisclaimitory]

2 minutes ago, ChopBam said:

Are you referring to this one?

yes

ty

[AZ-Stalker]

If a new city map is in the works, then I'd pitch in an idea to add strategic verticality for flanking and sneaking. Like catwalks and ladders above the ground level to get to rooftops and such vantage points. Heck, if it's just an industrial area or a village, add vertical vantage points there if applicable too.

[NoSoldier]

I was a huge fan of Shallow Graves back then. Might need to take a look at it though or look back at some of my old screenshots.. My nostalgia sense is tingling on the same level as the... welp, let's call it "snowy-dam-map" from beta as both were of my favourites in the sense of snow maps. (Even though I just am not able to remember the name of it.)

Bunkers, as well as TWT could be pretty fun now as Pushwall has done a great job balancing the game. And the city map looks campy but pretty pleasing for the eye.

My piece of advice? Just do what keeps your interest up. You've always had great intuition in the sense of good map design.

Edited December 17, 2018 by NoSoldier

[ChopBam]

The city map was based on a cutscene where the tanks bust through the wall and drive in the streets.

[Nodlied]

2 minutes ago, ChopBam said:

The city map was based on a cutscene where the tanks bust through the wall and drive in the streets.

[NoSoldier]

Just my fast 2 cents about it: You could convert it, as I've always seen it as reference to the fallen wall of the warsaw pact/iron curtain, a map with a death strip, which makes it easier to find pathways for less campy fights.

Edited December 17, 2018 by NoSoldier

[Nodlied]

1 minute ago, NoSoldier said:

Just my fast 2 cents about it: You could convert it, as I've always seen it as reference to the fallen wall of the warsaw pact/iron curtain, a map with a death strip, which makes it easier to find pathways for less campy fights.

I actually like the current idea of a Russian city in wintertime somewhere close to Moscow. Doesn't need many barricades, if any.  I always imagined the wall to be there to either seperate a part of the city/town/vilage/whatever from the wilderness or as a wall that seperates a part of town from a park.

[Ice]

I'd love to see a new city map, something based on Stalingrad, Berlin or Moscow. A very war-torn looking WWII-style city map with lots of cover for infantry, and lots of places for house-to-house fighting. Overall a dark and grim theme, perfectly suited to RA1.

[OrangeP47]

I like all maps, but I have to admit, TheWoodsToday is *the* iconic map when I think about all the playtime in old versions.

[thedisclaimitory]

2 hours ago, Nodlied said:

but then the map metro took that roll and became a more upscaled version of a city map if only there was a bigger version of metro were we could include elements such from both the metro map and the a new city map

[thedisclaimitory]

26 minutes ago, OrangeP47 said:

I like all maps, but I have to admit, TheWoodsToday is *the* iconic map when I think about all the playtime in old versions.

yes: the only thing that would interest me more into this map is if it would have a big village on like the left side of the middle or somthing cause it seems so bland I mean yeah theres a forest and yeah theres a cabin with a barn but theres nothing more its just like a plane past all the other things in this map. like bosnia is a good map its got a lot of stuff theres tunnels, a wine cellar, a barn, a camp fire camp thing, a broken down sub pen, and a broken bridge, it does not sound like its plane but  the woods today map just feels and sounds like its plane when you talk about the stuff, and they kind of took away the tunnel that went from the house to the barn so they were taking away map content in the process but hey its from the gamma edition of apb what can go wrong??? UUUHH the naval units were taken away for GOD knows what reason, and maps looked totally bland; but then some maps looked bald like stormy valley; then they barley made changes to the maps and they rarely made new maps; idk if they did rarely make new maps but it felt like it was rare to see a new map during the gamma edition of apb. The reason I was always on the mpf server on apb was because of the fact that they brought back old maps on there server like the apb map, the river raid map, the old complex map, old renalert zamma and classic zamma; and it was all running on gamma on an apb server.  I had fun times on the mpf server on classic zamma I remember camping in front of the nuclear silo elevator using a Tannya while having the nuke flare in the corner in the middle room one dudes dead body went up and down the elevator and they couldn't get in the door because of his dead body and then we won the game because I nuked the base within radius; I still remember that part of the game to this day. Oh and bring back classic Zamma please I kinda liked the gamma version and the first version of zamma please bring them all back redone. 

Edited December 18, 2018 by thedisclaimitory
added a word

[des1206]

Shallow grave should include islands for Chronotanks to island hop. If Allies get cruisers on that map Soviets will need to get Migs.

Migs and cruisers will be amazing on A Path Beyond.

[FRAYDO]

6 hours ago, NoSoldier said:

My piece of advice? Just do what keeps your interest up. You've always had great intuition in the sense of good map design.

Quoting for truth.

Personally, I'm for The Woods Today because there was nothing more satisfying to me than nailing Soviet advances with my arty from atop the hill. However, I would very much like to see A Path Beyond as well. As that's THE map that we can fit literally everything on, that would be the one to heavily promote our game with and show off what all we have to offer in terms of units and buildings.

[ChopBam]

Side by side comparison of map design for "A Path Beyond" in early versions of RenAlert (A Path Beyond the game) versus Red Alert.

[ChopBam]

Apparently the large travel time is a huge deal, according to pushwall it takes a mammoth tank two full minutes to get from the coil to the range of the enemy turrets. We can size the map down, move the bases more central, or a combo. If I were to remake this map I'd also attempt to make it more square and shaped even more like the original.

[Pushwall]

1 hour ago, ChopBam said:

Apparently the large travel time is a huge deal, according to pushwall it takes a mammoth tank two full minutes to get from the coil to the range of the enemy turrets.

For comparison it takes 1:20 to accomplish the same thing on Siege, the map which is apparently "too big", and 1:30 on Ridge War which really is our biggest current land map. I see a lot of groans about Ridge War and Siege whenever they come up (though less so for Siege nowadays, presumably because MiGs) so we can't really afford to have travel times longer than that.

And for further comparison it took 2:30 to go from base to base on A Path Beyond with .9935's mammoth tanks, which move about 5/6 as fast as they currently do, using the same metric of coil-to-turret-range. I'd make a "you damn kids have it so good" joke but I wasn't even around for that.

[ganein14]

I was Pushwall, and it SUUUUUUUCKED!!!!! Not to mention the constant harassment from Longbows and you'd be lucky to have just one mammoth tank with full health to take the brunt of the turret fire, let alone half.

[Jeod]

When I look at A Path Beyond (the map), I see a high-stakes, all-tech available battle showing off the namesake. Here's a picture.

The map is just made for game nights with high playercount. You've got two bridges for tankwars and one land route with maybe a mine passage to promote sneaky tactics. The gem fields are protected behind the bases to keep the cash flowing and allow high tech during all times of the game. The map's also cut down to size to keep the battles raging.

Alternatively we could swap the gem and base locations to create a battle over wealth.

[Jeod]

Here's an alternative version.

[Raap]

I'll hold the unfavorable opinion that A Path Beyond-The-Map is not a design that suits A Path Beyond-The-Game and I can say that not just with lessons learned primarily from Siege but also the fact that it has inherent design flaws for both gameplay and in terms of environment, both originating from the limited source material.

As yourselves if we really need another open grassy map that might as well be called CoastalRidgeInfluenceWar. The map name "A Path Beyond" in general might simply spark confusion as well.

The Woods Today suffers from a similar problem but at least it can be spun around to look quite unique, with some considerable work. It helps that TWT is significantly smaller in size. Bigger maps simply take more time, plain and simple.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

Another idea that came up on discord, that I've considered in the past, was "Volcano but with the map boundaries turned into water".

Here's an example of that which is just lazily taking the original map, deleting a bunch of the terrain and making the outermost edges all dip to the same elevation. A real version would be a bit classier than this. So we get our first full combined arms map - infantry, tanks, helis, planes and naval - and isn't particularly big, so in addition to travel time not being a concern it could even be suited for low player counts.

[OrangeP47]

57 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

Another idea that came up on discord, that I've considered in the past, was "Volcano but with the map boundaries turned into water".

Here's an example of that which is just lazily taking the original map, deleting a bunch of the terrain and making the outermost edges all dip to the same elevation. A real version would be a bit classier than this. So we get our first full combined arms map - infantry, tanks, helis, planes and naval - and isn't particularly big, so in addition to travel time not being a concern it could even be suited for low player counts.

I actually really like this idea.