Fiodis's "Zorolar: Volcanic Asteriod" is another example of the much-maligned "first map," and while there are some commendations that can be given, I'm afraid it certainly deserves its fair share of some criticism as well.

The best things to be said here are some important ones: First, the author is obviously trying to be creative, in that his world is not set on (pick one) Yavin, Geonosis, or Tatooine. Second, there are none of the original map textures in there (except for a small part that's viewable thanks to the flyers, but was obviously not intended to be), including a change in the worn-out Yavin sky to a much more appropriate nighttime sky.

However, there are several points of contention I would make. The biggest point is that this is a two-CP conquest map. Yep, two CPs. That means you just fight and fight and fight and gee, well, the map might as well be an assault map because there's not a lot of conquering to be done. It's possible, of course, to win by conquest, but winning by conquest by capturing a single CP isn't any fun either.

The second point is that the map itself is pretty bland. Yes, the author did make a good effort to make it different from the multitude of "first-map-Yavin-IVs" out there, but new ground textures does not an exciting map make - at least not by themselves. There is a little terrain variation, but for the most part it's just a flat map, with a small assortment of hodgepodge props near each CP. Also, adding flyers to your map is a fine idea, but it's worth it to make sure the flyers have sound, and it's also worth it to make sure that it doesn't look sloppy once you get up in the air. It's a lot easier to see the sloppiness around the edges of a map when you can free-fly.

Additionally, the hero assault/conquest maps feel pretty unimaginitive. Yes, some of the heroes have new names, but they're basically the same heroes you're used to using in hero assault (and in the case of hero assault, they're the exact same units, just with different localizations). Adding a pistol or a chaingun as a secondary to a Jedi just feels a little silly when it's really the only change you've made.

Finally, filesize. Gee whiz, this is over 600 MB uncompressed - for a single map. That's uncalled for. There are a lot of ways to trim filesize - the biggest one is going to be not including a completely remunged all.lvl, imp.lvl, cis.lvl, rep.lvl, and jed.lvl. Heck, there are some .lvl files you can just straight-up delete; having tur.lvl and any of the SIDEshell.lvls is unnecessary.

-Mav

Zorolar: Volcanic Asteroid