Good Drakan MP levels

Anything to do with Drakan level editing and modifications, post it here! Also this is the place to tell us about your new levels and get player feedback.
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Mechanist
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Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Mechanist »

Together with various people from the Discord channel, we've sorted through all of the multiplayer maps from the Gold Pack.
Listed here are these levels which are of decent quality; note those are the only levels that will be included in the Drakan Community Patch.

First, let's get the 10 original Drakan MP levels out of the way. Those are:
  • Alwarren of Death (Air)
  • Arena of Death (Air)
  • Grotto of Death (Air)
  • Nemesis (Air)
  • Island of Death (MD)
  • Rise to Power (MD)
  • Volcano of Death (MD)
  • Hill of Fire (Ground)
  • Relic (Ground)
  • Sanctuary (Ground)
Most of those 10 are quite good, and all of them are more or less playable.
However, some of them have various design issues, which detract from the proper multiplayer experience:
  • Alwarren of Death:
    Very good overall, but the cave with the magma powerup is a prime camping spot (with free heals to boot!).
    Severity of issue: minor.
  • Grotto of Death:
    Great level, with a small balance problem - two very powerful pickups (ice weapon + invulnerability rune) are located in a relatively secluded area, and very close to each other; this combination effectively allows a skilled player to exert more or less complete control of the area in question; displacing them from there can be a highly challenging task, to say the least.
    Severity of issue: minor to moderate.
  • Island of Death:
    An otherwise well-made map, which has prime camping spots for both humans and dragons alike - great for a picnic, maybe; but not so good for actually playing multiplayer.
    Severity of issue: moderate to severe.
  • Volcano of Death:
    Another map which has well-designed level geometry - but it also suffers from a balance problem, in that it can be unduly difficult to actually defeat the dragon; in other words, the other players on the ground are at too much of a disadvantage.
    Severity of issue: moderate.
NOTE (for the uninitiated): MD = MotD = Master of the Dragon = QoD = Queen of Dragon; these terms all mean the same thing, and are used interchangeably.
MotD is the "official" term, which is how it appears in the game itself as well as in the manual; but QoD is the one that actually caught on.

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

Now, as for the fanmade MP maps:

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

Air levels:
I've checked all of them by myself, and about half of them are actually good.
A few are marginal to say the least - and the remaining ones aren't worth playing at all, IMO.

The good ones are:
  • Dragons Den: an OK hybrid Air duel/FFA map; it has some minor playability issues (duel health pickups have excessively long respawn interval), and the level geometry is a bit unpolished in some places. The former is easily fixable, but the latter would involve a fair bit more effort.
  • Dragon's Lair: another OK map, loosely based on the stock Grotto of Death MP level, but somewhat more open.
  • Fortress: fairly good map; there are also arena variants of it, with different elemental weapons.
  • Fountain of Life (both 1 and 2): very nice maps made by Sserpenthraxus; FoL2 is almost identical to the first one, except that the "Pray to the Serpent" shrine (powerup pickup spot) near the magma powerup seems to have been fixed (it's rather buggy in FoL1).
  • Oasis: another fairly good map; it's relatively compact, thus good even with only 2-3 people playing,
  • Tropic: very nice map; because of its size, it's best played with 4+ people.
  • Wartok Canyons (Air): a cut-down and modified version of the Wartok Canyons SP map, it's an OK map; suffers from some minor glitches (including the nonfunctional Dragon Haste powerups, misdeclared as "Rynn powerups"), but still very much playable.
Honorable mentions:
  • Dragon Sea of Fire & Storm: a visually very nice map based on the Islands SP level, but unfortunately plagued by numerous bugs (possibly fixable though); it's also quite large, so it'd be best to play it with at least 5-6 people.
--------------------

QoD levels:
All of them have been checked by various people; the general consensus is that only 3 QoD maps are actually good.

Those are:
  • DQtest (aka DragonsQuest): a very nice QoD-like map (it's actually mixed Air/Ground, not pure QoD); well-designed and fun to play - best with teams enabled, since that makes another interesting territory-defense mechanic come into play.
  • Dragon-Ride: another fun mixed Air/Ground map; the Ground aspect could use a bit of polish (eg. putting interesting stuff in all those empty houses), but it's still very much playable.
    (NOTE: it also has a QoD Duel variant, with 2 dragons behaving as per usual QoD rules)
  • Fossil Canyon: unlike the previous 2, this is actually a true QoD map - and a pretty good one, at that; it has pretty much everything a good, well balanced QoD map should have; my only complaint is that its aesthetics could use a little improvement, but that hardly affects the overall playability.
Honorable mentions:
  • Flying Battleships: suffers from some serious bugs, especially when running on a dedicated server - but it's built around an interesting premise; also it might actually be salvageable, albeit with some substantial editing.
  • Frosty 0: interesting idea, but somewhat lackluster execution. Although technically kinda playable, it could certainly use some improvements.
  • Grove: another case of a flawed gem - actually not bad at its core, but rather unpolished; also has some geometry errors, as well as very bad dragon camping spots. Might be useful as an intermediate product for making a new QoD map.
--------------------

Ground levels:

The actually decent maps:
  • Aquazone: a fairly good FFA map,
  • Bloodland: a large, OK FFA map (best for 4+ players), from the WoB clan; has minor FPS issues in some areas, but remains playable,
  • Colosseum: an OK, playable FFA map.
  • Cosmos: a fairly good duel map, with a good selection of weaponry.
  • Frost Relic: essentially a combination of the Relic and Hill of Ice and maps,
  • Frozen Dead: OK duel map,
  • Frozen Duel: nice duel map (although it could use some background music),
  • Hill of DragonFire: a variation of the Hill of Fire map,
  • Hill of Ice: an icy variation of Hill of Fire,
  • Ice Islands: nice FFA level with an instadeath water gimmick,
  • Instagib Duel: exactly what it says on the box; simple map, but quick & fun to play,
  • Ironthorn Woods: an OK, fairly compact FFA map,
  • Katana Duel: OK duel map,
  • RSaulkaros: very interesting multi-map level, featuring several unusual (for Drakan) gameplay elements,
  • Sands of Illusion: an OK FFA map,
  • The Keep: nice duel map; it could be further improved by adding some music,
  • Tigers of the Rainforest 2: a nice FFA map made by Sserpenthraxus,
  • Village of Death: a large FFA map, best for at least 5-6 players; could use some background music though,
  • Legend: an OK FFA map; but note that the sequel (Legend 2) doesn't seem to be quite as good,
  • White Wolf Colosseum: a good, classic duel map that was very popular in the heyday of Drakan multiplayer (NOTE: it's not at all related to the Witcher saga; that's just a coincidence).
Maps which appear promising, and thus merit further testing - preferably with at least 3-4 people playing:
  • #2 <Arena> Pools of Hope (from the AoH series),
  • #7 <Arena> Aeron's Staff (also from the AoH series),
  • Amen,
  • Ancient Rivals {Hide-and-seek},
  • Blade Master,
  • Bladerun,
  • Bloodsport,
  • Call of Cthulu (minor geometry bug at the central platform, but still very much playable),
  • Castle II,
  • Citadel (has some known bugs, but should be playable),
  • Cliffs,
  • Colony,
  • Cragscleft Prison (yes, it's a Thief reference),
  • Crater of Death,
  • Dragonmire Swamp (aka Swamparena 3) {a FFA archery map},
  • Good vs Evil {CTF},
  • Kaleido,
  • Magic Maze,
  • Mauls,
  • Mutiny,
  • Queen of the Hill,
  • Rainmarsh,
  • Ruined Temple {4-player ranged duel},
  • Runeless Relic (a rebalanced version of Relic),
  • Spellcaster (FFA map with projectile magic weapons),
  • Team Islands {CTF} (quite large, obviously for at least 5-6 players},
  • The Island 2,
  • Vampires {Team Arena} (a classic from the AFW clan; not exactly great by modern standards, but playable nonetheless),
  • Vengeance.
Then there are also a few maps that are best described as "novelty maps"; not really great for normal gameplay, but still interesting because of their unusual nature:
  • Avalon (an unfinished tBtB guildhouse?),
  • Hide and Seek,
  • Super Paintball Arena,
  • Tropic Paintball,
  • WheelOfTime (from The Blood that Binds; left in for old times' sake).
Finally, there are also some maps which aren't really playable in their current (unfinished, bugged and/or heavily unbalanced) state - but they look otherwise promising, and might be salvageable by a skilled map maker. Those are:
  • Andhorn,
  • Auropolis (fails to load at all on a dedicated server).
  • Hai-Ding Village,
  • Katana War (nice terrain design, but quite poor balance),
  • Rage (not bad, but the weapon pickups are horribly bugged - Rynn "can't reach that"; she never can),
  • Sacred Realm (clearly unfinished CTF map; would be decent if finished),
  • Stalkers (team map with an interesting premise, but somewhat lackluster execution),
  • The Dragon Arena (functional but rather bland; could use some extra decoration and music).

NOTE: There are also some fanmade maps which have good design in the geometric/aesthetic sense, but suffer from serious playability issues; due to being rather poorly balanced (eg. Katana War).
Some of those can be fixed relatively easily - either by changing the relevant class properties in the Level Editor, or by moving and/or reassigning the weapon & health pickups.
Hopefully these maps will be eventually improved in the future, and re-released as new versions of the existing maps.

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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by UCyborg »

Alwarren of Death and Arena of Death are stock maps.
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by mage150 »

UCyborg wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 9:47 pm Alwarren of Death and Arena of Death are stock maps.
Tropic I believe was the other one that was stock.

4 of us tested more maps yesterday.

AoTM > Highlander - No
Assault > Storm und Drung - No
Dragon Riders > The Days of Glory - It was interesting to run around through but No
Gotq > No
King of the Hill > Conquer and KOTH > Neither is worth it. CTF is pretty buggy and was never fleshed out.
Peak Monestary - No
PaintballWarZ - God No
Portals - No

Mindfire > Various maps - A lot of the levels are nice but no one was really excited about them as they are small/congested. Limbo is the map I was thinking about that had portals and I will use that as the inspiration for our hub maps going forward!

Novelty Maps:
Genocide > They are fun maps that had a lot of hard work but overly complex.
The next 3 are maps I made and will probably keep handy since they are more "break the mold"
Special > Undead Wars - We had a bunch of laughs but this was mostly a test map for new REC models. I might make better maps with this concept.
Special > Duke it Out 2 - Everyone seemed to enjoy but it is in fact a novelty map. It is super polished though.
Super Paintball Arena - Again super novelty but something I'd say would be played on a special request.
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by UCyborg »

Tropic I believe was the other one that was stock.

Nope.
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Mechanist »

Jage/mage150: that's great, thanks for testing those; that's some more to cross off the list.

What do you think about these ones, then?
  • Ctf :arrow: (all 5)
  • Domination :arrow: Endeavour
  • MoB :arrow: Hunt in the Halls of Darkness
  • Special :arrow: Xiao Xiao
  • The Legends
I haven't actually tried them yet, so I have no idea what they even look like.

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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Arokhs Twin »

Tropic was made by Morghus as an entry for a level editing contest. Zeoc's maps are typically OK to good. Lord Stone (who made the Katana War map) may have made some more but so far I can only find Andhorn which was voted as a no. Original source of Zeoc's maps http://www.mninter.net/~cathyh/links_drakan.htm
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by yangez93 »

The good ones are:
I've checked out your proposed maps and also wrote list of weapons, pickups and powerups. And my little remarks. I hope it'll be usefull.:)

Dragons Den:
We playeed couple of times and I agree, nice map, it has some glitches in ceiling of dome or dragon accidentally land. But Is quite good for duels and can accommodate spectators :) Even nice map to melee dragon combat, we tried this before.
Main weapons of Dragons Den:
  • Ice. Freezing opponents and next fast switch weapon to fire to terminate opponents :)
  • Poison.
  • Magma
Runes:
  • Invulnerability middle of map
  • Usefull Health Pickups
---------------------------
Dragon's Lair

Map well created and quite balanced, not much complicated. Looks like Grotto. An example of the map that should be for Drakan MP, keeps the atmosphere of Drakan :)

Main weapons of Dragon's Lair:
  • Poison
  • Ice
  • Magma
Pickups:
  • Invulnerability
  • Usefull health pickups
Map for nearly about 4-5 players. Standard number of players.
---------------------------
Fortress
Main weapons of Fortress:
  • Poison
  • ice
List of Pickups:
  • Main health pickup
There are couple of diffrent version of this map with magma, invulnerability. This one is balanced I think. Map for maybe: 4 players. Quite balanced and symetrical :)
---------------------------
Fountain of Life
Dragon weapons:
  • Poison
  • Ice
Main Dragon pickups:
  • Invulnerability
In my opinion map for: 4-5 players. Map is quite balanced, and has appropriate Dragon weapons. Interesting middle of the map where the main battle will take place.
---------------------------
Fountain of Life II
Main Dragon weapons:
  • Poison
  • Ice
And main Dragon Pickups with one diffrent rune:
  • Invulnerability
  • Invisibility
Because it is little bit expanded than previous mentioned map it can place more players: 4-6. The question, it is worth to pick Invisibility?
---------------------------
Oasis
Main Dragon weapons:
  • Poison,
  • Ice,
  • Magma - sometimes hard to pick this when players still are constantly attacking but maybe it'll be worth it :)
Dragon pickups:
  • Health pickup on the middle
For maybe 4-5 players :) Symetrical map and players can hide behind the mountains to renew energy or heal.
---------------------------
Tropic
Everyone can agree with me, huge map :) I noticed decrease of FPS on the ocean. There is one very unpleasant point-> pass between ocean and lake. Dragons need to land and other players can easily defeat them

Main Dragon weapons:
  • Ice,
  • Magma,
  • Poison
Dragon pickups:
  • Invulnerability
4-6 Players to be fair but it is huge map. And I noticed it is quite dark map :)
---------------------------
Wartok Canyons Air
Main Dragon weapons:
  • Lightning,
  • magma,
  • ice,
  • poison
Dragon pickups:
  • Speed rune,
  • invulnerability rune,
  • invisiblity rune
It is for me not very balanced especially with combination Lightning+Invulnerability :) But map looks great, especially with snow effects.
-----------------------
DQtest
Rynn pickups:
  • Quick Invulnerability
Rynn weapons:
  • Torch,
  • Bow,
  • posion arrows
  • ice hammer
  • Chain armor
Very intersting thing is jump platform - Hard to jump using this :) Map is quite huge, very annoying is when Rynn fails to jump using jump platform.
------------------------------
Dragon-Ride
Dragon weapons:
  • Dragon magical weapon,
  • Runes for renewing energy?
Rynn weapon:
  • Double Axe
  • Sword of death
  • Death mace
  • Hammer of Herrules
Good map for freetime, but I don't think it can be good for MP, especially when will be ground battle and dragon will be easily to hit:)
--------------------
Fossil Canyon
Dragon weapons:
  • Fire
  • Magma
Rynn weapons:
  • Ground punder(magical main bow),
  • Dragonstrife on outskirts of map
Rynn pickups:
  • Ring of invisibility,
  • rune of invulnerability
Here a lot of players can play, even to 8 players I presume :) We played this map in server, by becoming Queen of The Dragon you can get a big advantage on this map.
-------------
Aquazone
Rynn weapons:
  • axe of fire,
  • Thunder hammer
  • Ground pounder
  • Lifegiver
Rynn armor:
  • Banded mail
  • Dragon armor
My thoughts: it really balanced, it has not complicated and unusual weapons so players do not get lost in it. The advantage can be obtained by pick ground pounder on the middle of the map. Map for maybe 4 players.
------------------------------------
Colosseum
Map is abundand with various weapons and pickups
Rynn weapons:
  • Thunder Hammer
  • Lifegiver
  • Frost Axe
  • Dragon Strife
  • Crypt of Defence
  • Maur
  • and Deathly Boulders :D
Rynn armors:
  • Banded mail
  • Plate mail,

Rynn pickups:
  • Invisility Potion
Nice map but has some glitches such as: problem with stairs(player have to jump), it is possible to go outside of tower. And very interesting thing is these Deathly Boulders so players can drop from above :)
--------------------------
Cosmos (duel map)
I really like this map, it is balanced, on start players have whole arsenal of weapons :D

Rynn weapons:
  • Axe,
  • Hammer,
  • Dark sword,
  • Fire sword,
  • Katana,
  • Dagger
  • Thunder Hammer
You should definitely add to your server map list. Map for 4 players. Very helpfull on this map are platforms for heal.
----------------------------------
My suggestions:
Ruined temple, very intersting map that players have either "Thunder Bow" or "Machine Gun" :D. Map for 3-4 players.

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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by UCyborg »

Auropolis (fails to load at all on a dedicated server).

How to reproduce? Does it happen on Arokh's Twin's server (or anyone else's dedicated server)? Works on my end.

Wartok Canyons (Air): a cut-down and modified version of the Wartok Canyons SP map, it's an OK map; suffers from some minor glitches (including the nonfunctional Dragon Haste powerups, misdeclared as "Rynn powerups")

What powerup are you talking about exactly? I haven't found anything with "Dragon Haste" in its name in the editor. There's this error: 89 of 294 objects in this level referenced non-existant templates in the object database!
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Mechanist »

UCyborg wrote: How to reproduce? Does it happen on Arokh's Twin's server (or anyone else's dedicated server)? Works on my end.
Connect a few clients to a dedicated server, load a bunch of random Ground levels first, then load up Auropolis.

The dedicated server can open it just fine - but none of the clients can.

I recently managed to inadvertently reproduce this bug, by loading all the Ground levels in alphabetical order. When I got to Auropolis, sure enough, the bug happened again.

BTW: at least 2 levels actually consistently, repeatably crash the dedicated server itself: EoD Darkmist and Prophet of the Dead.

UCyborg wrote:What powerup are you talking about exactly?
I don't remember what the exact name is, "Dragon Haste" is the effect name.

In Wartok Canyons (Air), one of those is where Rynn & Arokh begin the level in the singleplayer version; it's at the extreme far end of that cave.
In Dragon Sea, there are 2 of those powerups near each other, underneath a large stone arch near the shoreline. They look differently there (like odd pink crystals), but that's just a different model, the effect is the same.

That database error happens because Jage was too lazy to clean up all the objects left over from the singleplayer version of Wartok Canyons - but they don't actually affect the playability, the level loads and works perfectly fine. (those misdeclared Dragon Haste pickups are an unrelated problem...)

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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by UCyborg »

Connect a few clients to a dedicated server, load a bunch of random Ground levels first, then load up Auropolis.

Right, right, right, the problem that happens after loading a bunch of other levels before. Maybe there's also something about those previous levels, but state of the engine only becomes critical after this one is loaded.

BTW: at least 2 levels actually consistently, repeatably crash the dedicated server itself: EoD Darkmist and Prophet of the Dead.

Yup, what a mess. Both work on regular server.

In Wartok Canyons (Air), one of those is where Rynn & Arokh begin the level in the singleplayer version; it's at the extreme far end of that cave.

I actually didn't think of checking that part...thanks, now it all adds up!

That database error happens because Jage was too lazy to clean up all the objects left over from the singleplayer version of Wartok Canyons

Ah, easy to fix though. Less than 100 clicks. :)
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Mechanist »

I updated the OP with the recent results; only about a third of the maps left to sort through :)

UCyborg wrote: Mon Jun 11, 2018 12:07 am Yup, what a mess. Both work on regular server.
To be fair, at least those 2 maps aren't too great anyway. No big loss there.

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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by UCyborg »

That bug with Haste powerup in Wartok Canyons isn't a level bug, it's a bug in the game, presumably hidden somewhere in Dragon.rfl. I don't see anything wrong with game data, the declaration of FX Powerup is correct, Dragon powerups are for breath weapons, so changing Type doesn't achieve anything. Put the powerup in any other level and it also won't work on dedicated server.

The level has serious aesthetic issues though, the fog doesn't cover up terrain popup at all and all models appear fullbright.
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Mechanist »

Ah, I was just going off of what Jage (mage150) told me, which was that he looked in the editor and it was misdeclared as a Rynn powerup. I guess we just weren't on the same page, then... :?

BTW, any idea what causes the arrow quivers to be upside-down in most MP levels? I don't think the level makers have put them that way just to mess with the players :)

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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by UCyborg »

Here's fixed Wartok Canyons level.

BTW, any idea what causes the arrow quivers to be upside-down in most MP levels? I don't think the level makers have put them that way just to mess with the players :)

Example of the level where I can find them? I'm quite unfamiliar with MP specific stuff.
Last edited by UCyborg on Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:27 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Good Drakan MP levels

Post by Mechanist »

UCyborg wrote:Example of the level where I can find them?
Good question. We weren't keeping track, but it happened in at least a few levels so far.

Here's an example from DQtest (aka DragonsQuest); note that there's also at least 1 other inverted quiver in that level (that I can remember).

Inverted quiver.jpg
Inverted quiver.jpg (59.9 KiB) Viewed 17386 times
BTW: at least in DQtest, it doesn't matter whether it's on a dedicated server, or hosted locally.

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