13/7/2000
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Title		Ultima Thule
Filename 		HKtourney1.bsp
Author 		Paul Fravigar - [HK]Vd
E-mail               	fravigar@hotmail.com
Description           	Quake III: Arena Tourney level
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-- Installation Instructions --

- Make sure you have the Quake III: Arena point release installed.
  For more information, visit http://www.quake3arena.com/
- Unzip the content of this zip file into your Quake3\baseq3 folder
- Run Quake III: Arena 
- The map will appear in your single player skirmish menu under Tourney, FFA, and TDM.
- You can find details of any multiplayer servers running this map at the Clan HK webpage at http://hunterkillers.tux.nu



-- Gametype information --

	This map was intended from the outset as a Tourney level for use against human opponents, and is loosely based on q2dm1: The Edge (Hence the name Ultima Thule - or in plainer English 'The Ultimate Limit'). However, if you feel the need to take on some bots this has been catered for and playtested to give the best game possible. 
	Also if Tourney is not your thing it also plays a mean game of FFA with ideally four players in the arena.


-- Known issues --
	
	Due to the complexity of this map the bot file is fairly large and can lead to sporadic drops in performance on some systems while playing bots. Turning sound quality down to low was found to ease or solve this problem for no clear reason.
	If you suffer from low fps on slower machines, changing to Vertex lighting makes a vast difference (10fps+ increase on test system). Although anything over a PII450 with Voodoo2 (or equivalent) should be fine as this was the base test machine configuration.








-- Background Incidental Information --

	In the planning stages of this arena there were a few key points that were paramount to the effort, mentioned here in no particular order. One such decision was to make a tourney level of high enough quality to appeal to the best duelists and therefore give it a fighting chance of making it into professional tourney. For this to happen the level needed a long but easy learning curve so that even after months of play new routes and moves could be found. It also needed to be extremely playable and fun, and to achieve this goal some of the best duelists in Europe got together to playtest it for a month after it's completion enabling the arena to be tuned to the highest level. This included the whole of clan HK and members of 4Kings (4K), with special thanks going out to 4K^Splink who kept updating it on his dedicated server so we could all test it at our leisure.
	Also designed from the outset was an Arena overflowing with tricks, something I felt was missing from 95% of all the original q3 maps. The results in this department speak for themself - Strafe jumping, circle strafing, rocket jumping,  baby rocket jumping, plasma jumps, plasma climbs, plasma strafe climbs, crouch jumps, bunny hopping, curving strafe falls, circle rocket jumps,  and even two rocket floats (if you can find these, one will get you the mega with a loss of only 14 health, but your gonna need to know circle strafing and bunny hops to pull it off at maximum speed and efficiency). All but a couple of these trick jumps were designed into the map during building by tweaking distances to not only make them possible but to give significant advantages to those who can achieve them. Also of note is that every item on the map is collectable without the use of a weapon, including the mega, you can even get up to the shelf that the two health near the RL are on without falling on them from above and without the use of a weapon. All I can say is, if you think you've found all the tricks, think again.
	Thirdly in the design criteria was a level where sound travelled so well that it significantly improved gameplay and tactics.
	And finally the big question of armour and health. There is mixed opinion on how much a tourney map should contain. This map is almost identical in this department to q3dm13, yet once learned it gives a much faster and more skilled style of game than q3dm13 during tourney play. Different levels were tested yet this configuration proved the most balanced in all situations, preventing total domination of the level by a single player, while allowing the more experienced player to win. 



-- Acknowledgements (In no particular order) -

Playtesters - Vd, Enhancer, Arachna, Iradium, R@ptile, Splink, Hux, Legbeard, Slash, D-Jack, Gambit
Major thanks go out to the above guys who helped improve the level immeasurably. 



-- Copyright / Permissions --

Copyright (2000) by Paul Fravigar. All rights reserved.

This package may only be distributed by means of electronic transfer,
free of any charge to the recipient, and may not be modified in any way.
All the files included in the original package must remain intact and
unmodified.

This package may not be distributed on any commercial CD-ROM without written permission from the author.

The only stipulation to using this map on a  commercial multi-player server is that full details of the servers location and accessibility must be sent to the author via email. I'll see you there. :)




Hope it floats your boat,

Paul Fravigar [HK]Vd

-- There's only one rule : make it as good as it can be and then make it better --

