CPMA Competitive Level Design Guide

I was rooting around the Q3 Promode site the other day and stumbled across this article which I’d already read years ago, enjoyed, but then forgot about…

CPMA Competitive Level Design Guide

For those that don’t know, Quake 3 Challenge Pro Mode is a gameplay mod created by Quake 1 and Quake 2 tourney vets who felt that Quake 3 was too n00bified. Considering that by the standards of modern day, mainstream FPS, Quake 3 is widely considered the most hardcore out there, that means that Q3 CPMA is honest to god the hardest of the hardcore you can get in FPS multiplayer action.

These guys spent years fine tuning Quake 3 for the best competitive play possible, willing to make no concessions to the casual gamer. Not only did they revise all the weapons and the game’s movement physics and general mechanics, they created an entire set of solid maps to play the game in, that far outstrips Id Software’s out-of-the-box arenas.

As such, the people behind CPMA know what they’re doing, so if you have any interest in FPS game mechanics at all, this is worth a read. The author goes into not only what makes a good map structure, but the role of different weapons in the game, and how their placement affects the quality of combat. At a time when the supposed golden standard for arcade shooters is Halo, where every map is devoutly symmetrical and the most powerful weapons are always placed on the highest, safest places on the map (two major FPS design no-no’s), the concepts explained in this article are of particular importance.

~ by Julian Gnam on May 15, 2008.