Fixes, changes and new maps.

We would like to think that, in general, the first released pack could be considered mostly decent. There have been issues, however, and we want to address them if possible. For this, though, and since we would like to close this pack and get going with more maps to get things rolling, we would appreciate bug/issue reports and general suggestions.

The task is already going. So far, a few maps have been updated and we’re thinking about how to improve others. Some of the changes (but not all of them) are:

• Modified ze_voodoo_islands’ floating crates to address the aparent issue that in some servers the func_rotating kills players standing on them. Instead, the path has been redone with a few tracktrains and path_tracks (which, from our experience, tend to be less of a hassle than func_rotatings)
• Modified the second island’s towers in ze_voodoo_islands so that getting inside them is easier. It seemed that they were at the size limit (or close to it) and some players found it annoying.
• Updated ze_death_star setting a lower gravity value when trying for the secret to work out the lack of bhop in the game. The lightsabers should be at a normal height too, now.
• Edited ze_sst so that zombies (hopefully) can’t knife through the spaceship’s floor. Although this is a Source quirk (that has been there since forever) we think that the little clip we added will do.
• Fixed the displacement cracks in ze_dust_escape. Although the map was always seen as a joke map design wise and we were a bit reluctant about changing that, we decided that we could do it more justice. Gameplay was overhauled too (by extending the bunker part), so we think that it is reasonable.

We would also like to ask servers to try ze_Siberia. Although we are not sure, we believe that there might be an issue while nearing the end of the map (at the point where chickens can be seen in glass cells) causing a huge lag. If possible, we would appreciate that different communities tried to reach said area and report if they either got server lag (or not) and if they could find a reasonable reason for it. The map will need to be updated regardless because some vents (left-as-is from the original CS:GO version, we believe) are not wide enough to let zombies in, so it getting it all out of the way would be fantastic.

The upcoming map pack is already in progress. Although probably not as big as the first one, we believe that this second one should also serve the purpose of trying to widen the gameplay horizons (with maps that, for example, differ from the typical gun ‘n run template). We can’t give an estimate on when it will be done, but we’re hoping that it won’t take too long (and long enough to have a lot of fun packed in).

Finally, we want to thank the few communities that have already been working with us to both polish the ported maps and try to get new things going. On that last point we might be having some surprises soon, but we believe that we should leave that for later.

First official map pack: Zombie escape map pack #1

Since we started the porting project our aim was to get a pack like this one going. The initial objective was a decently sized map pack (with a number of maps that would have been around 20 or 30), but we then decided that, in order to make clear that as a project we stood for both quantity and quality, the pack had to be bigger.

The produced pack has come to contain 48 maps, 47 of which are being shared with the .vmfs used to compile them. All of them (with the exception of ze_timesplitters_p, which was not recompiled as it was a requested fix done by the means of Vide) are compiled in -final with both VVIS and VRAD (LDR and HDR). We’ve also bundled a few map documents and a plugin to make particles work (some of the ported maps feature particles, so we recommend using our plugin and following the steps given; the source code is also packed so you’re free to ensure that no nasty things have been added).

As we have tried to follow our own set of rules (which you can find as the first post on this page), you will notice that most maps won’t be a 1:1 carboncopy, at least texture/modelwise. This is, of course, intentional: the aim for smaller filesizes has beel fullfilled in most if not all cases and we expect server admins to enjoy the fact that their FastDL servers will not be hogged anymore by absurd ports.

Some maps have been adapted to CS:GO gameplay wise. We thought that the classic maps ported, for example, could need teleports so that they don’t feel as boring to play. Some maps have also been adapted to the set of settings us thought would work best (and were more akin to the original intentions of the mappers). This means some maps are focused on ‘classical’ (for the CS:S sense) spawn style servers with one zombie spawning in the middle of the crowd.

We hope you enjoy the pack. We also hope that, for sharing the resources, a better mapping (and content producing in general) community can flourish. We are looking forward to releasing another map pack, be it zm, mg or ze again, and we’d like to hear about new mapping projects from any other mapper under the sun.

We would also like to thank the few testing communities, and would like to point out that we might change or rethink the policy for future tests but that, for now, we expect that the maps being in testing process are not taken from testing servers (you can find those a few posts below but the simplest way to check if it is a test map or not is just checking if it is listed on this page or not; if not it will be still during its testing phase).

Finally, here is the list of maps included (we doubt they’ll be of use to all servers and server settings, but most of them should):

ze_30_seconds__b21_p2
ze_ALIEN_mountain_escape_p3
ze_ATIX_helicopter_p
ze_ATIX_panic_b3t_p
ze_aztecnoob_p2
ze_blackmesa_escape_p4
ze_boacceho_p3
ze_Boatescape_Extendido_p4
ze_chicken_lords_p
ze_death_star_escape_v4_3_p
ze_drk_ratrace_v1_p4
ze_dust_escape_p2
ze_ffvii_mako_reactor_p4
ze_gods_wrath_v3_8b_p
ze_halo_poa_p4
ze_icecap_escape_v5_p
ze_infiltration_final_p2
ze_Island_Escape_p3
ze_jurassicpark_c1v4_p2
ze_Licciana_Escape_p
ze_LOTR_Helms_Deep_v5_p3
ze_LOTR_Mines_of_Moria_p2
ze_mario_tower_v4_p2
ze_minecraft_v1_1_p2
ze_mountainspire_p2
ze_mytex_escape_v3_p
ze_neko_canyon_p3
ze_NIK_allinone_p
ze_outbreak_v2_1_p
ze_paper_escaper_v1_p
ze_peter_mansion_v1_p3
ze_pitchblack_p2
ze_potc_v4_p
ze_Rooftop_Runaway1_p
ze_sc_turtles_v5_p2
ze_shroomforest_v3_p2
ze_Siberia_1990_v1_2c_p2
ze_Sorrento_Escape_p2
ze_sst_b2_1_p3
ze_surf_danger_p
ze_surf_facility_v2_3_p2
ze_texturescape_p2
ze_timesplitters_p
ze_titanic_escape_v2_3_p
ze_trainescape_final_p2
ze_voodoo_islands_v8_5_p3
ze_winter_p2
ze_zk_fapescape_a9_2_p2

And two links to download the pack:

MEDIAFIRE LINK: HERE

MEGA LINK: HERE

MIRROR: HERE (Special thanks to the person that has let us use this mirror)

Have fun, and if you wish to contact with us use the Rules of _p steamgroup (whose members may or may not be linked with us, but who will tell us about any needs or enquiries).

EDIT: Well, isn’t this great? We had a little issue in our readme.txt and we listed ze_LOTR_Mines_of_Moria_v6_3_p instead of ze_LOTR_Mines_of_Moria_p2 (which is the latest one). The correct one is in /maps, but remember this when you update your map lists.

EDIT 2: Cool, we’re great at proofreading our stuff. The same thing as with Moria has happened with Pitchblack (which should be ze_pitchblack_p2). The correct .bsp file is attached, so just bear with the stupidity of ours in the listed maps.

On the upcoming Zombie Escape map pack.

As the few readers that might be out there (given that the project isn’t fully public as of yet) would expect from the inforomation given, the map pack will be released soon. We’ve been pushing the deadline further and further for two reasons:

1. We wanted to ensure that there would be no quirks (or almost no quirks) with the maps packaged in it.
2. We wanted to provide a big enough set of maps to boost Zombie Escape for once and for all.

For the first point, we think we arguably got that sorted out. We are aware about a few visual issues in some maps (that took me some heavy inspecting and are usually just forgotten nodraws on a few faces), but in the big picture I believe everything should be there in most cases. Of course, being it mostly a port-based map pack, we had to work with what it is (despite some touching up in some maps as a little artistic freedom taken to refactor the maps for the game iteration just like with the stock maps) so if the original map was not too good in terms of aesthetics you should probably expect the same.

Bugs should be sorted out, at least to a degree when the maps can be played without hassles and they can be overlooked as minor issues (to be polished in a future update, if any). If, for a reason, we had left something out then we would evidently try to fix it as fast as possible provided we knew about it.

Most of the maps we ported are simple. We wanted said simplicity since a good chunk of them look above your average map and we thought that would be enough to make mappers try to push the limit and make the mod advance. We also wanted to encourage simpler mapping: (first/initial) maps don’t have to take years to produce (as it has been happening lately in CS:S with the overly complicated maps) as long as the idea behind them is good. Encouraging mappers to ‘start small’ and then get big progressively is the only way for them to truly develop and make the best out of the new engine.

On the second term, we wanted the pack as big as possible. In fact, although we were thinking of releasing today, we have come to the conclusion that it would be better to wait one or two days more to polish the remaining issues in the latest ports and attempt to finish a few already ongoing ones. The work being done is a time trial against ourselves and, given that we claim no rights over the ports and that we wish to remain virtually unknown, there is not a single bit of ego going on (other than our own self respect when it comes to doing things right or wrong). We would like to extend the pack into the +60 map barrier, but we doubt that is feasible with how awaited the pack might be as of now.

What is all this gibberish? When is the thing out? Soon.

Resident Evil (zombie) playermodel pack

Although there were not used a lot in CS:S (minus 2-3 servers which had a full blown Resident Evil ambientation), those are models that always felt right. Perfect for the slow/mother zombie, the normal zombie and the fast zombie classes, they complemented eachother by sharing their stylistic grounds and, of course, origin.

We’re proud to present them, now adjusted to CS:GO:

The three playermodels in the pack. Perfect for a server that wants to keep darker themes and ambiences.

For the shake of brevity, we won’t blabber much more: the filesize is reasonable and, putting trust in the modeller, these ports should work well. The screenshot might look odd (specially the Nemesis, to which the picture makes no justice at all) but give it a try and you’ll see how well they look ingame.

Download link: here

EDIT: Pack updated correcting the issues with path names breaking the hitboxes.

Playermodels: another thing to work on.

As evidenced by the very description of this page, our main focus has been maps. We believe that, besides plugins (which bears an importance, but is just the unseen backbone), maps are the most important thing for an interesting gamemode that keeps a decent pace. Some of us believe that maps are more important than plugins (since some gamemodes are succesful without the need of plugins) but, in the case of Zombie Escape, we need a symbiosis that, to some degree, we’ve achieved (sadly that doesn’t go for communities cooperating with mappers or their porting efforts).

Assuming those two points would be sorted out, and voicing some of our previous concerns in terms of openness, absolute (as absolute as possible) equality in terms of choices for all communities and complete independence from target servers, we figured out we might try to make everything open (as we know a few people that might jump in and share their knowledge and workforce). We’re talking in regard of playermodels, the third quintessencial component that makes both gameplay and aesthetics different by each server’s choices.

There are less modellers that there are mappers, at least in the Source Engine modding scene. Also, in contrast with CS:S, CS:GO is severely lacking distinguishing playermodels for each community to use. We could wait for modellers to spring up but that might result in all communities looking the same for months, perhaps even years. Instead, we’ve taken a more proactive approach.

In our attempt to change this, we’ve started speaking to modellers that agree with our porting process and who want to collab. So far only one person has responded (to who, of course, we’re pleased to thank) and this is the first obtained result:

A revisited version of the ported alien model. This model has working attack animations and, just like in CS:S, is pretty cool.

Download link: https://www.mediafire.com/?3kpjrl07750vj5t

Our interest isn’t in splattering names (like some mappers, modellers and plugin coders do) but, rather, get content for everybody, without quirks or hidden issues. We’re unsure of how long it will take to get a reasonable content base, but we’re sure we’ll get there.

EDIT: Link updated with a few fixes. If you’re using this model we’d advise to update to the new version.

Testing, no community affiliation and fair use of the ported content.

When we established the porting rules, we made it clear that we wanted the mod as a whole to develop. For a mod to develop, we believe, there must be equal opportunity for all from the same point. We thought that, although some porters might be interested into adding some console messages and the likes, it’d be better to refrain from it. We, however, thought that the porting rules and the fair use rules should be different.

The content we wanted to port had to be available to all communities at the same time. Same time implies that, at the moment of its release, every community would try tweaking their config. values to what fits better in their own view. This would’ve meant that:

1. The maps had to be released together
2. The maps had to be of a more than average quality so that communities with slower administrations wouldn’t be hindered by using older versions
3. The maps, on top of all, had to be public when released

Some of the involved mappers had interests in having the communities they happen(ed) to be affiliated with in the maps. Although we thought that this wasn’t the best (it could stop server admins from adding that subset of maps), the amount of branded maps has come out to be negligible and we don’t think it will be a problem. We also reminded ourselves that popular CS:S maps (with Mako Reactor being a clear example of it) had similar advertisements so it wasn’t really a problem.

Three communities offered their servers for testing, being three the different servers we believed that would be needed for testing. We, since then, reached a fair amount of maps.

We knew the ports would, at a point, get downloaded by players and suggested. We had thought about security measures (such as making the server hang on an infinite loop or ban all the players which we had proven to be doable with the correct set of entities) but we thought that it would’ve hindered the process. Some communities, as expected, did so and claimed that they had ported the maps by themselves.

Perhaps in a too hot blooded fashion (but, still, simply firing rounds into the sky), we told them to stop or we’d have to add safety measures and reassured them that the maps would be public for everybody to use. We expected that this would stop and they’d be patient, but sadly it didn’t happen. It came to our attention (since most of us have mapped a fair share of original projects, some of which are among the ported maps) that they claimed all maps to be public (which, of course, we find ridiculous from the authorship point of view: a map will be public if its author states so, be it the original mapper or the person that, after explicitly asking to do so to the original mapper, works on a port). Instead of backing off, they still followed that path (which we think is just both saddening and hurtful for the mod as a whole). We are not going to give out the name (they shouldn’t get any publicity for playing dirty) of those communities (although they should, in our opinion, feel unwell about what they’ve done since we understand this as our efforts being disregarded).

On the bright side, other communities did wait. Appart from the testing communities of SteamGamers (SG), elManikomio (emk) and Mapeadores, we noticed that GFL were using some of these ports for testing (they had joined Mapeadores since there was a knockback fix, albeit less perfected than Peace Maker’s one, going at the time) and they told us that we didn’t have to worry since they’d wait for the first release of the complete pack.

The porting rules of _p.

One of the things we were aiming for when we started the porting project was to both graphically improve the maps for the new engine and adjust them a bit for the engine changes. We had noticed that most ports were extremely low quality recompiles (often disregarding VVIS optimization or baked lightmaps quality VRAD calculations by compiling in fast mode). Some ports also suffered from severe console spam and excessive advertising, added by porters that wanted to appear themselves on the maps.

For the first points, that are directly linked to the look and feel of maps as a whole, we devised the following rules:

1. No ported props should be used from CS:S/HL2, unless there is no possible match (like, for example, combine props). If a ported prop is to be used, it has to be recompiled (we have been using the following tool: link). Custom props can be kept.
2. Use as few textures from CS:S/HL2 as possible, only when there are no matches. The textures should be resaved as version 7.5 .vtfs, but it is not completely necessary (although recommended). Custom textures can be kept.
3. Lighting should be overhauled and adjusted to be compatible with CS:GO’s HDR lighting (which is always enabled and, thus, makes LDR even silly to compile). At times, VRAD will choke on relatively large maps so you will need to increase the lightgrid. CS:GO’s cascade lighting system will make that, despite having lower resolution baked lightmaps, the map will come out well.
4. Post processing effects and color corrections should be used and added. Color corrections are a perfect way to improve how a map looks with little to no effort. Using the default color corrections (check materials/correction for details) is encouraged to avoid packing issues.
5. Gameplay must be adjusted as much as possible, including but not limitted to changing crouch areas’ heights so they’re enterable (we’d recommend 56 units in height as it is a nice multiple of 8), adding teleports on maps that lack those and adjusting breakables’ health points since CS:GO’s weapons deal more damage.

This 5 rules, if applied correctly, end up yielding low sized maps (since they rely on GO assets) that are adjusted to CS:GO’s engine. It requires effort, of course, as well as series of tests, but we’ll get to that later.