Snap to Grid: Santorini, 23rd Century Warfare and more

Welcome to the latest edition of Snap to Grid, our semi-regular showcase of community maps and mods for Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars. As always, ETQW Mapping‘s MC-mappa Terry ‘Salteh’ Seidler is here to give you a guided tour of some of the latest happenings in Mapping Land.

This month, we pay a visit to Greece, venture deep into Steedium Mines, and do some work on a construction site. And because nothing is complete without giant robots, Mechs make an appearance thanks to the 23rd Century Warfare modification.

Santorini

Steps, steps, steps, lots of steps! That’s one of the central features of ShibbyUK’s Santorini, a map based around a small, Greek island located in the Aegean Sea, with a population of about 14,000. It may be small, but it’s certainly not boring, thanks to a recent Strogg invasion seeking to wipe out the island’s civilisation, just like the local volcano did many centuries ago.

Intelligence indicates the Strogg main base is located in the area near the volcano. The GDF team start out in the island’s capital city of Fira, and have to work their way down a long set of stairs to reach the port. Here they have to construct the docks, allowing them to get to the Strogg base by crossing the Caldera. Their second objective, right next to the volcano, is to hack the ShaftShield generator.

ShibbyUK has been working on the map on-and-off for the past couple of months; creating the hundreds of steps took an eternity, but was definitely worth it! Not much is known about the map at this point, but the soon to be released beta should change that. For now, we’ll keep a keen eye on the Santorini thread on the community forums.

Turtle Mapping

One of the more unique projects recently is the Turtle mapping project by SebaSOFT and others. This project has several mappers and artists working together to create the first collaborative Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars map. While most of the project members are in it purely for the fun of mapping and working together, we suspect this could easily turn into something quite interesting. Their first project is Construction Site, or Consite.

Naturally, as part of the map making process, things such as textures, details, layouts will change a lot while the team is working on the map – as a smart man once said, “Notheeeng is final.” Still, if you want to take a look at the latest efforts, admire screenshots and encourage the mappers, visit the Turtle mapping forum thread.

23rd Century Warfare

Something else that set off our awesome-o radar this month is the 23rd Century Warfare mod. Oneofthe8devilz announced his mod about a month ago, posting a work-in-progress thread containing loads of videos and previews.

The mod promises a number graphical enhancements like improved lighting and water, making sure every surface in the game is lit dynamically and reacts correctly to any lights. Game design and balance tweaks are meant to make the game even more fun, while new gametypes and units will be added along with a reworked damage system. Having 32 player matches on huge, unique battlefields sounds awesome to us! When we will be able to actually play the mod is currently unknown, so for now we’ll just have to drool over our keyboards looking at the screenshots and videos.

Steedium Mines

Violator is not only working hard on Consite, he is also keeping himself busy with a new map titled Steedium Mines. The map it still in alpha, but the main objectives are already in place and ready for testing. The Strogg are the attacking force on this map – they’re trying to fire their Big Gun, but the entrance to their underground facility is blocked by ice. A mining laser is dropped in after aggressors destroy the ice with a heavy explosive charge. Once the Strogg transport three weapon crates to their Big Gun and fire up the weapon, it’s all over for the GDF.

Steedium Mines is still in testing, and Violator is planning to tweak and update his map based on the resulting feedback. Objectives and the map layout may be changed, depending on what you, the players, think.

One of the things you can do to help is to join the Sunday Night Custom Map Nirvana – a weekly get-together where the mappers get instant feedback and discuss bugs and ideas for future maps, all while shooting each other in the face. But most of all, it’s a great way to experience the latest crop of new community maps. For more information on the how and when, have a look at the Custom Map Nirvana forum thread.

Terry “Salteh” Seidler serves as Splash Damage’s Mascot and regularly cuddles the tapirs over at ETQW Mapping.

Do you have a map or mod we should feature in a future installment of Snap to Grid? Let us know in the comments!