The Great Hall

The Great Hall

This is a rebuild of the first The Great Hall, a nice DM map that takes place in a Hall.

Title : The Greater Hall

Version : 1.0

Release Date : 03/09/01

Filename : DM-GreaterHall.run

Author(s) : Mike 'Oriain' Ryan

Email Address : [email protected]

Web Page : www.oriain.net/rune

Other levels by author : DM-Warlock; DM-Wendol; DM-LostCrypt; CTT-Misers;

DM-Sturmkeep (1 & 2); DM-GreatHall (1,2 & 3)

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--- Play Information ---

Game : Rune

Level Name : The Greater Hall

Single Player : None

Cooperative : None

Deathmatch : 4-6

Capture The Torch : None

Difficulty Settings : None

New Sounds : None

New Graphics : None

Known Bugs : A few BSP oddities when you see a doorway from weird angles, but nothing major. Also the wide elevator sometimes becomes lit very strangely & turns mostly black. There seems to be no reason for this whatsoever & it does not appear to affect gameplay. Has to do with the mover being dynamically lit, I think. But if you run into any serious problems, please report them to me ([email protected]). Thanks!

--- Construction ---

Editor(s) used : RuneEd

Base : None

Construction Time : I've lost count of the weeks...

Installation

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Unzip the .run file into your Rune/maps directory.

Author Info

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Mike Ryan (aka 'Oriain')

[email protected]

www.oriain.net/rune

Map info

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A complete redesign of my first map, The Great Hall. Every room, hallway, door and mover has been rebuilt from scratch. I added two secret areas to the map and included one not-even-a-puzzle sort of obstacle as well. A wide assortment of weapons is available in the map, including multiple Viking & goblin axes, Viking Broadswords, Trial Pit Maces & even a few bone clubs. There is also one each of the Dwarven Battle Hammer, Dwarven Work Hammer, Dwarven Battle Axe & Sigurd's Axe. You'll find plenty of shields, including two Dwarven Wooden Shields, one Dwarven Battle Shields and several round Viking shields that respawn very quickly. Lizards, steins, legs-o-meat and one Rune of Health provide the healing, while two Rune of Power refills provide the only power-up capabilities. The Berserker Rune is in the map, but hidden.

My main concern with this map is performance, as the great hall section of the map reaches 175 or so polys from certain angles. This is also invariably where the bulk of the fighting takes place, so slow machines & slow connections might affect your enjoyment of this map. Still, I am now getting 35 frames-per-second in 1600x1200, 16-bit mode (details max'd) on a P3-600 w/256 MB RAM and a 64MB Voodoo5 5500 card. That was with RuneEd & Outlook Express running in the background. I know for a fact that many Rune-heads have better rigs than mine, so most hard-core fans should be able to run this map just fine with a 4-6 player load. Note that I dropped the suggested player count to 4-6 (instead of 4-8) because it seems to be a much better and more realistic number for this particular map. You may be able to do 8 players, but probably only if the server screams and every client has a sub-100 ping.

Many thanks to the folks who helped playtest this map -- especially panic, Nutbusterson, Stinkbeard & Thundarr from the Runegame forums. Some other folks joined in the playtesting as well, but I did not catch their names. (sorry!) Also thanks to Dr. Pest, who gave me some useful feedback on the skybox & weapon availability. And as always, a special thanks to HumanHead's Dave Halsted (who tolerated my many e-mails & offered some very helpful feedback about poly optimization).

If you find any errors, bugs, oddities or just plain gameplay killers in this version, please let me know about it right away. Send any and all feedback to [email protected]. Many thanks & enjoy!

Copyright / Permissions

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This level is copyrighted by Michael Ryan/Oriain/Oriain.net 2000/2001.

Authors may not NOT use this level as a base to build additional levels. This map may

NOT be modified in any way without the author's express, written permission.

You are NOT allowed to commercially exploit this level, i.e. put it on a CD

or any other electronic medium that is sold for money without my explicit

permission!

You MAY NOT distribute this BETA level through any electronic network (internet,

FIDO, local BBS etc.), provided you include this file and leave the archive

intact.