Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you've all been waiting for! Get yourself a SNACK, possibly a BEVERAGE of some sort, and prepare yourself for the longest frigging Desert Crisis-related post in INTERNET HISTORY! Behold:

NEO AND KALLO'S EPIC CUSTOM MAP ADVENTURE PART 2!11!1! ZOMG!
With special guest stars THE CROWBAR GOD, SKEEJ, H4X, DOOMEDNESS, SILENTSHOT, KIRBY, BOOM, SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG and PIPBOY2000!

Before I get started, let me set the scene. A few weeks ago, Kallo and myself decided to try some of the custom maps for DC, and you can follow our wacky adventure right here. While this adventure was full of awesome-sauce, we didn't manage to play every custom map and so decided to go through the ones we'd missed in a brand new, totally bad-ass adventure. However, after meeting up a week later and playing through this new adventure, DISASTER STRUCK as we realised we hadn't been saving the text in the console and we'd lost nearly all the dialogue from the entire night. How did I take this news? Badly:

:TD: NeoE: OH SHIT
:TD: NeoE: SHIT!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK FUCK FUCK!
:TD: NeoE: HALF MY FUCKING CONSOLE HAS RESET
:TD: NeoE: SHIT!!!!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK!!!!
:TD: The Crowbar God: i'm sure i have it

Unfortunately Crowbar was WRONG and we ended the night feeling a little deflated. However, after raging out for about two hours, I calmed down and decided that we'd do the second adventure again, but we'd do it properly with decent players and making sure to save the console every other map. Additionally, I came up with a very cool idea for the adventure, something which will be revealed towards the end of this epic post, and you're going to love it.

With all that nonsense out of the way, let's get started with with DC_ARENA!



So this is yet another melee map, and it's pretty decent. You start off in a room which gives you a choice of melee weapon, and then you're teleported into a sandy fighting arena where you batter the other team to death. Bonus!



As fun as this map was, we didn't really care about fighting as this map contains a secret and we just love finding secrets. To get to it, you have to jump in one of the fires.

:TD: The Crowbar God: i love it when people go 'the secret is in the fire'
:TD: The Crowbar God: and they get the wrong one
:TD: The Crowbar God: and burn to death
:TD: NeoE: crowbar is desperately trying to get on the forum
:TD: TheCrowbar God: FUCK YOU NEO!

So anyway you jump into a fire, activate a button, hit a different fire with your weapon, and then you end up here:



Two players have to press the torches either side of the door for what seems like an eternity.

:TD: NeoE: how many times do i have to press this fucking thing

Eventually it opens and there's a clock!



And there's a secret wall which leads to a monkey in a cage!



And there's also a Christmas tree for no reason!



Meanwhile, everyone had problems of their own:

:TD: The Crowbar God killed self with trigger_hurt
skeej killed self with trigger_hurt
h4x killed self with trigger_hurt

The appeal of this map was rapidly wearing thin, so we tried to give it a score:

h4x: 7.56534234234/10
:TD: NeoE: i give this 7
:TD: The Crowbar God: i say 7 too
skeej: id not give it more than a 6

7/10 it is! We were clearly happy that we'd managed to agree on something:

:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU NEO!
skeej: I FUCKIN YOU GUYS
:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU CROWBALLS

We moved swiftly on to... eurgh... DC_AZTEC!



Let's not beat around the bush here, it's basically just de_aztec from Counter-Strike. And given that it's from CS, we decided to talk like we were playing CS:

skeej: OMG LAME
:TD: NeoE: OMG NOOB
:TD: The Crowbar God: LOLFAG
:TD: The Crowbar God: LOLOLOLOLOL
skeej: OMG UR A NOOB AWPER
:TD: NeoE: ECO ROUND
h4x: oh god cs has set in
:TD: The Crowbar God: ANTI SEMATISM!
:TD: NeoE: OMG AIMBOT



Everyone was simply raving about this map:

doomedness: I give this one a -6 for originality
skeej: i give this a minus 10
:TD: The Crowbar God: I think for cs it was a good map but not for a DC map
h4x: ok 0.1/10 for turrets and having dc_ at the start



The general opinion was that de_aztec is a decent CS map, but it doesn't work in DC. Unfortunately this isn't the last we'll see of CS maps in DC, as you're going to find out soon. Next up, it's the infamous DC_BOOMTOWN!



As soon as we started playing, everyone was heaping praise on this map:

:TD: The Crowbar God: best map
skeej: ITS SO AWESOOOME

Perhaps the most amusing part of this map is that if you get to the top of it, you can enter a room and activate THE APOCALYPSE:





skeej: THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING
:TD: NeoE: OH SHIT NOT THE APOCALYPSE

The apocalypse, according to dc_boomtown, consists of the lights turning off and everyone dying after about two minutes. At first, I hated this:

:TD: NeoE: I DON'T LIKE DYING OR HAX COMING AT ME IN THE DARK

However, I then got into a fight with skeej and ran out of ammo. Picture the scene here - I'm about to die, I can't see anything, and I only have my melee weapon left. I decided to throw my sledge at him from about a mile away, which was obviously not going to hit him. Right?



One in a million.

skeej: LOL NICE
:TD: NeoE: OMFG~!!!!
:TD: The Crowbar God: haha NEO!
:TD: NeoE: wow
:TD: The Crowbar God: yeah

Anyway, the map is pretty fun for a DM map and it has some interesting features, like this weird water tank which everyone seems to love:



Plus we have the worst-disguised hole ever:



And then I fell down it later.

:TD: NeoE cratered
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: oh boy
skeej:HAHHA neo
skeej: SO OBVIOUS EH

FUCK YOU SKEEJ! Anyway, let's see what we thought of the map:

:TD: NeoE: ok so i give this 4
h4x: melee + infared is jsut so fun
:TD: The Crowbar God: i give 7 fr origionality

And I give Crowbar 1/10 for spelling! Next up, we have the hugely confusing DC_BULLETPROOF!



We think this is converted from Counter-Strike, but we're not sure. Anyway, we were playing in order to review the maps based on gameplay and how much fun they were, so here's what skeej had to say:

skeej: the map looks pretty nice i guess
skeej: but the grass has a weird shade of green

What a good observation regarding how the map plays! HAVE A COOKIE.



I then found the market, which only seems to sell one thing:



:TD: NeoE: the market appears to be selling cardboard boxes

Anyway, the map is alright but the layout is confusing and it didn't flow very well. We agreed that it's worth about a 6, and if we started playing it more frequently it could be pretty decent. BUT HEY CHECK OUT THIS TREE!



:TD: NeoE: i love the circa-1999 tree
:TD: NeoE: the classic four textures

Kallo, who had said next to nothing for the first three maps, suddenly woke-up to say this:

:TD: Kallo Mahtar: it is good

That's great! Let's move on to DC_COUNTRYSIDE2!



This is basically the classic dc_countryside that we all know and love but with a few changes, including some bars by the Plaza cap-point.



The bars didn't go down very well, and neither did h4x's spelling:

doomedness: I dislike them.
:TD: The Crowbar God: I also dislike them
h4x: just cause u cant c4 h=them
:TD: The Crowbar God: pardon?
:TD: The Crowbar God: h=them?
:TD: The Crowbar God: ...
:TD: Th Crowbar God: h=!???

Anyway, the best new addition is that you can now get inside the little room behind the church.



Check it out!



A bunch of gravestones dedicated to the original DC team, wowzers. But there's one that says Desert Crisis is dead, so FUCK THAT ONE!



We also found this fairly amusing:



h4x: it would look better if he was dead



h4x: perfect

It was at this point that Kallo wanted to show me the bars which he'd been talking about FOR THE WHOLE MAP.

:TD: NeoE: ok so shows me these bars you keep harping on about
:TD: NeoE: that's right, 'shows me'
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: they just look like bars tbh
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: the bars dont really do anything
:TD: NeoE: you're not really selling them to me
:TD: NeoE: you'd be rubbish as a car salesman

Then Crowbar found out that his cousin has got engaged:

:TD: The Crowbar God: my cousin just got engaged
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: sucks to be your cousin
:TD: The Crowbar God: better than dying lonely LIKE YOU KALLO

Things were clearly getting ugly, so we agreed the map is worth 9/10 and moved on to DC_CTF_HELLFIRE.



The music for this map is 'Fire' by Arthur Brown. H4x was extremely happy about this:

h4x: +100000 for music



So anyway, this is a very basic capture the flag map with two bases (obviously) and a simple pathway surrounded by lava between them. It's nice to see CTF in DC, but the map could do with being a little more complex. We had problems trying to agree on a score:

h4x: 10/10
:TD: NeoE: 8 for the general map
:TD: The Crowbar God: 9/10
skeej: ctf gameplay-wise it isnt all that
doomedness: 4
:TD: NeoE: 4?!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU DOOM!

From this we can summise that the map is a nice effort at CTF but is too simple, and also doom is a score Nazi. Forget about the general gameplay though, as the secret is awesome! You C4 boost into a secret cavern, and activate a magic crystal:



After this, a message flashes up saying, "Oh no! The God of Hellfire is angry!". There's a big roar, and then the pathway between the two bases is bombarded with explosions. I particularly like how this secret actually affects the map's gameplay, rather than just being a hidden room. With that said, nothing beats Hamalio's flying couch. Anyway, check out the awesome victory scene:





I always said that UP-KOLA gives you aids. Let's move on to the last CTF map of the night, DC_CTF_UNKNOWN!

Or rather, let's wait a minute because it was at this point that h4x's server crashed. Everyone decided to message me on Steam to complain:

skeej#Yarr: timeout? fail
Kallo Mahter: fail server failed
The Crowbar God: gg h4x gg

But not to worry as h4x soon got things working again and we loaded the map up.



Hey look, it's 2fort! But which version?

:TD: NeoE: it's 2fort!
:TD: NeoE: for quake!
skeej: ah its tfc_dc_2fort
skeej: quake 2 fort 2
:TD: NeoE: it's quake_tfc_dc_2fort



We then started discussing whether or not it was worth having a password on the server:

doomedness: Do you honestly believe someone else will join even if you don't put a password on?
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: they did last time
:TD: The Crowbar God: have you ever encountered pipboy before doom?
doomedness: Yes, but I think I surpressed those moments from my memory

Within about 2 minutes people started complaining about the map:

skeej: the rust texture with the square pattern is so ugly

He has a point:



The conversation took a turn for the worst:

:TD: Kallo Mahtar: the map has style
skeej: if poop is ur style yes
h4x: kallo does like scat
:TD:NeoE: i was in amsterdam and there was a video in a shop called scat shake swallow
h4x: haha
skeej: nice
:TD: NeoE: i have tried to erase this memory from my mind
doomedness: Ah, now I'll have my dinner in an hour!
:TD: NeoE: are you having a shake?

Quickly getting back on topic, we decided to review the map:

doomedness: -.5
:TD: NeoE: i give it 4
:TD: NeoE: this doesn't flow, at all
h4x: 6
:TD: The Crowbar God: its too big

Then skeej won the discussion with this EPIC PUN:

skeej: he should have put in more f_fort HAHHAHA
:TD: The Crowbar God: hahahaha

Genius! Anyway, we didn't find the map very fun and we were having problems figuring out how to deactivate the shields covering the flags.

h4x: whereis the damn sheild shut off tho
skeej: WHERES THE ARMAMENTS
skeej: FLAG IS ON WRONG FLOOR

H4x finally found it, so I killed him.



Let's move on to DC_DUSK!



:TD: NeoE: oh god this one haha
skeej: OMG THE WEAR-C4-AS-A-HAT-MAP

Let me explain skeej's comment. Basically, you find this box and destroy it:



It tells you to 'steal' the C4 inside it, which you do. It then appears on your head, and immediately asks you to return it:



:TD: NeoE: you pick it up, and then it says RETURN
:TD: NeoE: where you JUST PICKED IT UP

None of us had any idea what this was about, so skeej and myself decided to start quoting Metal Gear Awesome:

skeej: YOU KNEW?!?!?
:TD: NeoE: DAMN RIGHT I'M GONNA HIT THAT
:TD: NeoE: HUNGRY FOR WORDS?!
skeej: HUNGRY FOR WORMS
:TD: NeoE: DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THIS IS FUCKING FAIR



Doom started complaining about the lack of equipment:

doomedness: One laptop for a whole village? What kind of 3rd world nation town is this?
:TD: NeoE: lplasma's home town
skeej: in lplasmaland everyone wears c4 as a hat

Sorry lplasma! Anyway, check out the water:



:TD: NeoE: FUCK THIS WATER, MY EYES!

Ratings time!

skeej: i give this map a 5.5
doomedness: I have very high standards
doomedness: I give this map a .4
:TD: The Crowbar God: agreed 4

From this, I think we can assume two things - one, the map is pretty bad, and two, Crowbar can't read decimal points.

skeej: i am so fabulous with my hat

On that worrying note, it was time to move on to, oh boy, DC_DUST!

That's right, it's de_dust for DC. Woop dee doo! Think we were done with CS-related jokes? Think again!

:TD: NeoE: top10
:TD: NeoE: rank
:TD: NeoE: statsme
skeej: lol

Thanks for your approval of my joke Skeej!



Anyone who's ever played CS or who has even heard of CS knows what dust is like, so rather than play the map we chose to do the next best thing - break it.



:TD: NeoE: ok so i'm outside the map



See, this is why you don't port a CS map into DC - it's not designed for it and the gameplay suffers because CS and DC play completely differently and have different objectives.

:TD:NeoE: dust is a great map, but not here
:TD: NeoE: 4/10
h4x: 3
doomedness: My -5 still stands

When then trooped over to - oh god! - DC_GRAVRUIN!



This is one of Kirby's earliest maps, and it shows. Still, everyone loves jumping around with low gravity and shooting each other, AMIRITE?



There are three things of note on this map - one, the big crystal you can see above in the center of the map.

:TD: Kallo Mahtar: can you get the thing in the middle?
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: ok golden thing dosnt do anything
:TD: NeoE: it's the sample gordon freeman pushes into the lazors
:TD Kallo Mahtar: if the golden thing did something this would get 10
:TD: NeoE: THE GOLDEN THING SHINES
:TD: NeoE: AND CAUSES RESONANCE CASCADES

Obscure Half Life 1 references FTW! Anyway, the second cool thing worth noting is this:



:TD: NeoE: i mean, come on
:TD: NeoE: UKPO

Finally, there's this MOVEABLE CRATE OMG:



:TD: NeoE: i have found a moveable crate!
:TD: NeoE: IT MUST DO SOMETHING
:TD: NeoE: OTHER THAN MOVE
doomedness: Right. This gets a -3.
skeej: 10/1
:TD: NeoE: ten out of 1
:TD: NeoE: go back to school

We then tried to change the map, but h4x's server didn't have it. Kallo was angry:

:TD: Kallo Mahtar: why didnt you download the custom map pack?
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: before offering to host the custom map adventure?

I was going to agree, until I realised the next map was DC_HELLFIRET2, which is by far the worst custom map ever made. Here we go!



Oh boy, where do I even start. First things first, USA can't even spawn. I don't mean that they need to wait for other players to die, or that if you join too late you have to wait for the round to end like on dc_village, I mean that the entire USA team literally doesn't play the map. Second, the map is one room with nothing to do in it - there's a button that activates a grate, and a monkey in a box:



There is also the worst staircase of all time:



If anyone has any idea what this map is about or how you actually get it to work, please let me know. Anyway, doom summed the map up as succinctly as possible:

doomedness: This gets a -infinity
doomedness: My pot pie needs a mix

With both this abomination out of the way and doom's pie mixed, we moved on to DC_HYRULE!



If you cast your mind back to the first epic adventure, you should recall dc_cerebrum, the custom map that tried and failed very badly to recreate the Metroid series in a DC map. Dc_hyrule is trying to do the same thing but with the Zelda series, so let's see how it does.



I immediately noticed one glaring error:

:TD: NeoE: ok so the triforce grants the wish of anyone who touches it
:TD: NeoE: many men have died fighting to find it
:TD: NeoE: WHY ARE THERE FIVE ON THIS MAP



Still, this map does an excellent job or recreating the castle from A Link to the Past. That must be a good thing because everyone loves Zelda, right?

:TD: Kallo Mahtar: zelda sucks

Kallo probably should have thought about that one before saying it.

:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: NeoE: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU KALLO!
:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU KALLO!

Seriously though, this map captures the feel of the game it's based on much, much better than dc_cerebrum did. Plus, certain areas of the map replicate the original areas very well. Behold:





The sanctuary music even plays on the DC map in all its eery, 16-bit glory. AWESOME-SAUCE!

It was at this point that Kallo threw some C4 into a fire and DC crashed for him.

:TD: NeoE: ok kallo just crashed desert crisis by throwing c4 in fire
:TD: NeoE: let's all make fun of him while he's not here
:TD: NeoE: KALLO LIKES MEN
:TD: The Crowbar God: LOL KALLO IS A DICK
skeej: KALLO IS GAY
:TD: The Crowbar God: I HEAR HE SLEEPS WITH UNDERAGE GIRLS
:TD: NeoE: I HEARD KALLO LIKES LICKING BALLS
:TD: NeoE: MAN BALLS
:TD: The Crowbar God: WHILEST ALSO BEING GAY

Then I found out you can climb the trees.



:TD: NeoE: omg you can climb the trees
:TD: NeoE: BONUS POINT
skeej: +0.01
skeej: you cant climb the trees on USA side
:TD: NeoE: that's because upkola gives you immense climbing abilities
doomedness: We have Up-Kola and trees!
:TD: NeoE: thanks for reiterating my joke

Anyway, I think the map is confusing but it's pretty cool. No-one else agreed with me:

skeej: 4.9 from me
doomedness: A 1.

You guys suck! Anyway, everyone was tired of this map so we moved on to what is easily considered one of the most fun custom maps, DC_LEGOLAND!



Everything looks like it's made of Lego, WOWZERS!

:TD: NeoE: this map is so good they put the name on the sky



:TD: The Crowbar Go: i wanna be a leg-o-leg-o man
:TD: NeoE: you heard it here first
:TD: NeoE: crowbar is a closet homosexual
:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU NEO!



There isn't really much to say about dc_legoland because everyone's played it, everyone loves it, and we're going to keep playing it until DC finally curls up and dies.

:TD: The Crowbar God: best map
doomedness: let's play this for 10 more minutes

We then realised that Kallo still hadn't managed to get his copy of DC working, so we tried to think of some helpful advice.

:TD: NeoE: i have suggested turning off the pc
:TD: The Crowbar God: has he tried pluggng the power cable in?
doomedness: Did he try to threaten it yet?

In amidst this useless banter, I blew Crowbar's legs off and he wasn't happy:



:TD: The Crowbar God: FUCK YOU NEO!
:TD: The Crowbar God: right in the face

It was time to move on to the next map, and we braced ourselves because it was DC_UNDERGROUND. Long story short, we had to stop playing the first custom map adventure because dc_underground crashed the server. It turned out we didn't have the wad file for it, so I found it on the internet and sent it over to h4x, who uploaded it to the server so we could all play. Hey, remember when I said 'long story a short' a couple of sentences ago? I LIED!



Unfortunately, despite h4x's best efforts he couldn't get the server to send people the wad, so h4x and myself quickly played the map by ourselves while everyone else waited patiently.



Hey look, it's a DC map that lets you walk on water! Either this map is so good it's holy, or it's just badly designed. I strongly believe in the latter.



Oh boy, this map is dull. There's the bland sandy bit outside, and then a cave, and NOTHING ELSE. There are no objectives and it doesn't feel right as a DM map, so I figure this is actually unfinished. There was nothing left to do but fall down a hole that doesn't actually kill you, and then murder h4x:



It's at this point that things are about to get a little bit strange. Basically, all the maps I've written about above were played during yesterday's epic adventure. However, remember how I mentioned our first attempt at doing the second custom map adventure, the one that failed? Well, it only half failed, as I still have photos and dialogue from seven of the maps, and we're going to jump right back to that game in order to complete our tour of all the custom maps for Desert Crisis! Watch out, it's DC_MELEEARENA!



Oh man, this is YET ANOTHER BLOODY MELEE MAP, and just like dc_arena you start in a room where you pick your weapon.



One problem with this map is that if you start playing when a round has started, you have to wait for a team to get 40 kills before you can start playing. That's harsh!

*DEAD*Bo0m!: So.. when can I spawn?

Skeej wasn't really paying much attention to what boom had to say:

skeej: I AM A COP YOU IDIOT
skeej: IM DETECTIVE JOHN KIMBLE
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: WHO IS YOUR DADDY AND WHAT DOES HE DO

And then this happened:

:TD: The Crowbar God killed Shadow the hedgehog with sledge
:TD: The Crowbar God killed Shadow the hedgehog with sledge
:TD: The Crowbar God killed :TD: NeoE with sledge
:TD: The Crowbar God killed Shadow the hedgehog with sledge
:TD: The Crowbar God killed :TD: Kallo Mahtar with sledge
:TD: The Crowbar God killed :TD: NeoE with sledge



Impressive skills from Crowbar, but remember kids - lay off the crack. Anyway, this map was getting old fast, so we loaded up DC_SANDTORN2!



There isn't really much to say about this, other than:

skeej: its day!
Bo0m!: yeah

So basically it's dc_sandtorn except you can actually see what you're doing now, and one of the markets has some nice music playing which reminds me of cs_italy.



You'd think there'd be very little to talk about given this is just the same old map we've been playing for ages, but the extra light made the market a little more clear, and this caused a few problems.

:TD: NeoE: what are we buying here
:TD: NeoE: in the market
:TD: NeoE: wtf is this



:TD: NeoE: wtf are THESE



:TD: The Crowbar God: why would upko want to capture a rug store
:TD: The Crowbar God: in the middle of a desert
:TD: NeoE: UPKOLA IS THE WORLD'S BIGGEST EXPORTER OF RUGS
Bo0m!: The darknes of the original map made it harder to see the market is full of weird bullshit



:TD: NeoE: wtf is this?
skeej: it's campbell's upkola





:TD: NeoE: who runs this market? pipboy?
:TD: NeoE: no wonder everything looks like stolen goods





:TD: NeoE: wtf is this
:TD: NeoE: gold?
skeej: oold rash?
skeej: old ash
skeej: my favourite
:TD: NeoE: gold crunch?
skeej: gold rush!
:TD: NeoE: oold ruah

It was time to move on to the next map.

:TD: NeoE: hoo boy
:TD: NeoE: have we got a sinker
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: stop saying hoo boy
:TD: NeoE: HOOOOO BOOOOOOOYYYYYY

Kallo may have been complaining, but hoo boy, the next map sure was pretty bad. Behold - DC_SNIPECITY!



On this map you have two team bases facing each other, and each player is forced to use the EM sniper rifle. To be fair it's not that bad, but it's pretty basic and the concept only stays interesting for about five minutes. Things also get pretty bad when you realise you can simply climb from one base to another, which basically eliminates the sniping element from the map or rather the one good thing the map had going for it.

:TD: Kallo Mahtar: this map fails now



It was at this point that Shadow the Hedgehog started sharing his internet woes with us:

Shadow the hedgehog: i cant get the pack because all of my internet is blocked except steam mygames
Shadow the hedgehog: cause a trojan got on my computer a while back
:TD: NeoE: did you parents blame you
Shadow the hedgehog: yeah
:TD: NeoE: a sad tale of why you shouldn't use bittorrent for porn
:TD: NeoE: just use youporn like everyone else

The appeal of this map had clearly worn-off, so we switched over to DC_VILLAGE2!



:TD: Kallo Mahtar: looks like village
:TD: NeoE: smells like village
:TD: NeoE: does it taste like village?

There is very little to say about this map other than it is IDENTICAL to dc_village except there are some tiny additions, including a bigger sewer and a few extra spaces behind some of the houses.





We decided to take a trip down memory lane by loading up DC_X-FADE!

Yay, Half Life 1 maps!

:TD: NeoE: oh hey it's 1998
skeej: this looks like a HL map thod
:TD: NeoE: it IS a half life map





I seriously cannot explain how much this type of DM architecture takes me back to the late 90s, I absolutely love it. Better yet, there are those health recharge stations, nades just randomly lying about (a classic DM staple), and a WORKING TURRET!

:TD: NeoE: TURRET CONTROLLABLE WOWWWWW

Also, another requirement of DM maps made in the 90s:



With only a few maps left, Pipboy decided to make his long-awaited arrival.

pipboy2000: is it 8pm already
:TD: NeoE: yeah, it's when the little hand is on 8 and the big hand is on 12

Then Kirby turned up!

[TWDCOB] Kirby has joined UP-KO
:TD: NeoE: KIRBY WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN
:TD: NeoE: AND LEGOLAND
[TWDCOB] Kirby: sorry was working on the house

This excuse is rubbish, the custom map adventure is clearly more important than fixing your leaking bathroom. Anyway, we all really enjoyed playing the map, and who doesn't love writing your name in a wall with a giant, mounted machine gun?





And yes, of course, we ended up going here:



And then this epic piece of dialogue occurred. To help you out, I've highlighted the most significant line:

:TD: The Crowbar God: my pulse rifle is better than yours!
pipboy2000: prifle is for fags
:TD: The Crowbar God: HAHAHAHAHA!
:TD: The Crowbar God: LOL

Moving on from this hilariously ironic statement, we decided to move on to the final custom map we had yet to play, the great and glorious FOE_DM!



I'll be honest with you here - foe_dm looks like someone just threw a bunch of random objects into a field, didn't bother texturing them properly, and then compiled the map. However, I love it so much because along with dc_hyrule and dc_legoland it is one of the only custom maps I can actually remember playing when Desert Crisis was first released, back around 2000/2001ish. It was great for me back then, and it's still great for me now. In other words:

:TD: NeoE: I LOVE THIS SHIT MAP
:TD: The Crowbar God: LOVE
[TWDCOB] Kirby: 10/10



Things started to get pretty ugly when we suggested not shooting each other for a few minutes so we could look around the map and take some shots. Evidently this simple suggestion was beyond certain players:

:TD: The Crowbar God: can i at least look around the map? you can kill me afterwards
pipboy2000 killed Shadow the hedgehog with p226
Shadow the hedgehog killed :TD: NeoE with flame
:TD: NeoE: ok maybe you don't get what we're doing here
:TD: NeoE: (holds head in hands)

Enough is enough - I started raging:

:TD: NeoE: WHAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: i told you why we wanted not many people neo
:TD: NeoE: there are SIX OF US
:TD: NeoE: SIX
:TD: NeoE: HOW HARD IS IT
:TD: NeoE: I FEEL LIKE CHRISTIAN BALE RIGHT NOW
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: lol
[TWDCOB] Kirby: WHY DON'T YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND
:TD: NeoE: YOU'RE A NICE GUY BUT WE ARE DONE PROFESSIONALLY
:TD: NeoE: I'M GONNA FUCKING KICK YOUR ASS
:TD: NeoE killed Shadow the hedgehog with mp510
pipboy2000: who made this map lol
:TD: The Crowbar God: man pip, neo's gonna have a field day on your ass
pipboy2000: field day? i failt to get the meaning

After this bout of sheer idiocy, I decided to show everyone the secret. You simply break open a very strong crate, and it leads to this room:



There's nothing else in there. Best or worst secret ever? YOU DECIDE!

[TWDCOB] Kirby: this is beyond a doubt the worst map I've seen
:TD: NeoE: you clearly weren't around for bloodsport

Whatever Kirby, at least skeej remembers the good times:

skeej: AH THIS MAP
skeej: this map was so awesome back iin the day!

That's right Kirby, skeej knows what I'm talking about!

skeej: lol jk
skeej: i never seen this map
skeej: and it STINKS

FUCK YOU SKEEJ!



Well, that's about it then, we've successfully got through all the custom maps and it's been fun. The end!

OH WAIT I LIED! That's right, there's LOADS MORE, starting off with the epic return to DC_DESERTCITY and the quest for the quantum box!



Now that we had Kirby (who made the map) with us, we were going to finally figure out how to get inside the stupid quantum box once and for all. As you can see above, you have to get up on this roof and activate some buttons. With this done, the lid opens on a box near one of the spawns, so you jump in and...



YAY!



:TD: The Crowbar God: QUANTUM BOX!

It was time for a group photo.

:TD: NeoE: EVERYONE COME DOWN HERE FOR PHOTO
:TD: NeoE: everyone POSE



So there you have it! Despite our first attempt failing badly, we've now played all the custom maps, and even found all the secrets. Surely this post has nothing left to show.

But wait, THERE IS MORE, and you are NOT GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT'S COMING NEXT!

When the first attempt at doing the second map adventure failed, I decided that if we were going to do it again, we'd have to add some new element or some big twist to make things twice as awesome as before. I sat and thought about this for some time, and then an idea hit me. It was a bold idea. A ridiculous idea. The best idea I'd ever had related to Desert Crisis. And what was this idea, you ask?

Every person involved in the second custom map adventure had to make their own BRAND NEW CUSTOM MAP and bring it along to be played!

Epic win. Without much further ado, let's get started with possibly the biggest abomination ever created with Valve Hammer - it's Crowbar's WATER1!



Oh dear lord, what have I gotten myself into?

:TD: NeoE: OH MY GOD
:TD: NeoE: NUMBERS DON'T GO THIS LOW OUT OF 10



It seems that the bar for the new custom maps had been set very, very low. Basically, Crowbar tried to make a new map in time for the adventure, but it was full of compile-fail and so he simply converted the first map he ever made into a DC map and, well, this mapping abortion is what we got to play with.



It should be noted that the main area is so huge that the game struggles to render it all at the same time and the map runs at about 10fps, which is pretty dire given this is the Half Life 1 engine. In fact, every single thing in this map reminds me of Half Life 1's custom DM maps circa 1999, where people were first starting to get to grips with Valve Hammer (or Worldcraft, if we want to be more precise). Seriously, you can practically see what Crowbar was thinking when he started making this map - 'hey, I can put buttons wherever I want! SWEET! How about some water that floats?! RADICAL! Some big tunnels that you fall down for no reason? AWESOME!'.





It's pretty much mandatory that your very first map has to be riddled with bugs and allows the player to fall outside of its confines, and water1 doesn't disappoint:



Opinions were heavily divided:

h4x: 100000000/10
skeej: THIS MAP SUCKS CROWBAR
doomedness: I vote that we destroy this map and erase all traces of its limited existence
:TD: NeoE: omg this map is like... i don't even know

Honestly, I didn't know what to make of the map at the time and still don't know what to make of it now. While the map clearly has no consistency to it and barely even functions as a map at all, it's a wonderful example of what happens when a new mapper comes along with loads of crazy ideas and no real idea how to implement them. It is a throwback to when it didn't matter if your DM map looked like crap or made no sense whatsoever, there was just this sense of achievement that you'd managed to make a working level and - joy of joys - other people were running around on it and killing each other. Crowbar, I salute you and your shitty/beautiful map.

:TD: NeoE: this is pure first attempt genius



After playing water1 for a good twenty minutes, we decided to switch over to Doom's map. I honestly don't know if there are any words to sum-up my feelings towards this map, but I'll try - let's check out DC_MELEELESS!



In a nutshell, Doom attempted to make the most infuriating map ever, and he succeeded.

h4x killed self with trigger_hurt
skeej killed self with trigger_hurt
:TD: Kallo Mahtar killed self with trigger_hurt
:TD: NeoE killed self with trigger_hurt
||BN'h|| SilentShot killed self with trigger_hurt
skeej killed self with trigger_hurt
:TD: NeoE: OMFG
:TD: Kallo Mahtar killed self with trigger_hurt
:TD: NeoE killed self with trigger_hurt
||BN'h|| SilentShot killed self with trigger_hurt
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: OMFG
*DEAD*skeej: ROFL
h4x killed self with trigger_hurt
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: EVERYTHING IS A TRIGGER HURT
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: DOOM I HATE YOU

Seriously... wow. If you jump on any of the dark borders, you die. If you in fact jump on anything that isn't the floor, you die. Sometimes you'll be running around and with no indication whatsoever you will drop through the floor, and you die. To make matters worse, Doom had managed - through means we weren't aware of at the time - to position himself so that he was completely invisible to us, but could easily snipe us all whenever he wanted.





Things took a severe dive when we realised there was a big secret on the map, and we became eager to find it. After a minute or two, I found this door:



However, after running towards it, I found that the floor is fake and you fall through it and die. To get there, you have to do a very awkward C4-boost, which is a complete pain in the arse. However, after a few tries:

||BN'h|| SilentShot: I DID IT
||BN'h|| SilentShot: w00t
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: WAIT FOR ME

Finally, I got across and pressed a button to open the door...



I walked through and OH WOW I'VE FOUND THE...



You absolute bell-end. It's a FAKE SECRET THAT FORCES YOU TO DROWN YOURSELF. What a bunch of cock!

h4x: err what do you do when in the door
doomedness: You found the false secret. Good job.

We spent literally half an hour trying to find the real secret, and this was so tedious that - I kid you not - skeej actually stopped playing and went to bed. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW DOOM?!

doomedness: You know, when I was testing this, the map even irritated me.

Suffice it to say, we eventually found the secret by C4-boosting across the fake floor, pressing the button, turning round and DELIBERATELY FALLING TO OUR APPARENT DEATH. I've heard of some tricky ways to activate secrets, but... damn.



You end up on a giant pentagram and can shoot people from below, and they can't even see you. This has to be the most evil secret I've ever seen on a map, so thanks Doom for being a complete nob-cheese. There's also this funky door, but I've forgotten what it does:



By this point everyone was raging so hard that we needed to change the map, so we switched over to Kirby's brand-new creation, DC_KINGTOWN!



This is a very simple map, with two spawns facing each other and a central area with a square in the floor. It's basically a classic king of the hill map (hence the map's name) where one team has to stand in the square until it is captured. While it's a great idea for a map and looks great for 3 and a half hours' work, there was one problem:

:TD: NeoE: kirby sent this to me earlier, it doesn't work

This was a little depressing as we all reckoned the map could be really fun if the cap point worked, but sadly it just gets to 100% and then nothing happens. Still, we had a great time lobbing grenades and C4 at each other (explosives are a must on this map) and we all laughed at the big fail step:



h4x: damn first step here

Yeah, you can't actually step on this one as it's slightly too high. Whoops! At least Kirby put his signature on the map, which is a nice touch. It's hidden on top of one of the spawns:



So yeah, it's a cool little KotH map and - once the cap is working - it could be really fun. And in complete contrast to something being really fun, let's check out Kallo's map! Look out, it's DC_SHAFTED!



The text file included with this map does a great job of explaining why it sucks so much. To quote Kallo himself:

"This map was made for the custom map adventure 2 non fail edition. It was an epic idea. Three lift shafts each with a cap point in them. Capping the lift moved it to block exit points for the opposing team. The result was nothing like this idea"

:TD: NeoE: ok i don't even understand how this map works



We played this map for roughly 4 minutes and honestly, I have no idea what it was about. It kinda looked like an elevator had got stuck in another elevator and people were randomly dying and then a whole team died but the round didn't end and OH GOD SO MUCH FAIL.

*DEAD*:TD: The Crowbar God: next

Well, this is it - the real, grand finale to the custom map adventure series. I had made my map in about 2 days, and it was time to unleash it on the world. I give you DC_LANPARTY!



I cannot even explain how happy I am that not only did I have the map finished in time for the adventure, but that it was actually working. Seriously, in the space of 5 hours I'd finished building my map, figured out how to get sounds and turrets working properly, got the objectives to work (thanks for the help Crowbar!) and even learnt how to make my own custom wad. Not bad for half an afternoon's work!



Anyway, the map itself is a simple DM map where everyone has 2 lives per round, ala dc_village. The idea is that the UP-KO team and USA team tried to have a LAN-party, but it failed and they just resorted to physical violence instead.

:TD: The Crowbar God: I like it
:TD: The Crowbar God: I think this should become part of the official map pack
h4x: 8/10

This is awesome! People like my map!

doomedness: I already said what I thought, 2/10
:TD: Kallo Mahtar: i say 2.5

Bah, you guys suck! Mixed views aside, everyone seemed to like the glass - basically I put eight breakable panels of glass at the top of the map, and people can stand and fight on it while people below try to shoot them down.



However, any DC map worth its salt needs a good secret and oh boy, did I have a surprise in store for Crowbar. After jumping on top of the UP-KOLA machine, you can shoot the top off and drop down into a secret room... which is covered in pictures of Crowbar, topless, painting to look like Where's Wally:



*DEAD*:TD: The Crowbar God: oh you have to be fucking kidding me
*DEAD*:TD: The Crowbar God: NEO
*DEAD*:TD: The Crowbar God: you fucking BASTARD
*DEAD*:TD: NeoE: HAHAHAHHAHA

Great success. The photo and idea for the secret had actually come from h4x, so kudos to him for that. Anyway, we continued to play the map for almost 30 rounds, which I was really pleased about. I know my map looks like arse and has a minor framerate issue, but it was really cool to see people having decent fights on it, particularly as the desks and computers present some nice cover opportunities, and everyone just loves that frigging glass.

So yeah, this really is the end. A big thanks goes to everyone who took part, an even bigger thanks goes to everyone who donated maps for the occasion, and thanks to YOU for managing to reach the end of this gargantuan post.

See you next time!

...

Meanwhile, Pipboy had problems of his own:

pipboy2000: I'm too big and she's too tight - got it?

Awesome work guys. Awesome work.
By the way, if you iron out the bugs in lanparty and want it put up with the rest of the maps, lemme know.

Oh yeah, and about the dc_underground wad problem, if h4x had been running the one off the map pack I have up, there would be no wad problem.

Hahahaha! Great work Neo, as witty and creative as ever! I guess all that hard work and angst paid off... eventually

Disclamer: Water1 was made when I was 15 in 30minutes when I came home from school one day, it was donated for 'LOLs'.

I would also like to note that - I am the tall one :/

Awesome good work Neoe, as for my dodgy maps... Well my DC install is ported from my orginal WON install so its pretty freakin old and broken.

Neo, your post reeks of AWESOME! This epic map adventure report is almost better than the actual adventure was itself

Nice job combining Epic Adventure Part 2.1 with 2.0 as well.


Too bad i fell asleep during doomed's map . We should've stuck more to the short playtest times per map

I wanted to play the other guys' maps too! Ah well, guess i'll check em out in the future. And i should finish that silly map idea of mine lol.

Epic post guys! I wish I was there for it; Specifically for all the custom maps; and more specifically for d00ms map.
I knew what he was making all along but I never could have imagined it would be so..... sadistic xD

Also; wtf was I thinking spelling it UKPO? ahhahhaha

Awesome Job guys and we GOTTA do this again!


Maybe next time I won't make my map in under 3 1/2 hours and have a working capture system ^^

Awesome Post Neo, fun read. All in all was a really fun day. Thanks for the Invite to come along.

of course doomnerdness dont remeber me... I always fucked him from behind. he was one of these players that used to score ok, dont talk a word - probably bcos he's "focused", and after you kill him like 40 times in a row with the m79 while he tries his katana he did simply leave the game. I dont think he likes me...