West Coast USA... (Old thread)

I think it's cool.. It does what it was intended to pretty well, and explored limits.
I also think it's nice, the fact that you can put a race car on a trailer, and drive it yourself to the race track rather than it being a separate map.

Since so many other maps got reworked, it will be too some day.

But again, the layout and all is great imo.

 

For me, in terms of 'layout' or 'feel', I think the map is fine. I like driving around the city, the suburbs, the outskirts/forest, flooring it on the racetrack and highway, and the variety and detail of the various landmarks and areas is something that other maps lack.

However, my main complaint about the map is its size. While I do like the overall design and feel of the map, like most of y'all, I indeed feel the map is too small to be enjoyed thoroughly. The highway, the city and the outskirts can be traversed so quickly that it feels very underwhelming. I also agree about the dead ends as they make the map feel claustrophobic and unfinished.

So, for my suggestions to the devs, keep the existing areas of the map as it is (I don't feel there is a need to move around or separate certain areas like other players are suggesting, like the racetrack), but expand upon them, like make the city, suburbs and forest larger. I think the overall size of the map should be expanded from its current 2048x2048m dimensions.

Also, removing the abrupt dead ends on the highway by looping them could work as a solution.

Obviously, this may not be immediately possible due to current technical limitations but I do hope to some form of these improvements in the future.

 

i like west coast usa, it was my "goal map" to run when i bought my pc and as the devs have said they're gonna improve optimisation i'm not gonna mention that.
my main problem however is possibly the opposite to most, it feels like the devs bit off more than they can chew when making the map that size. whenever i drive into the city, ignoring some of the faults, i often find myself loving it and driving around for a while and... i hit an obvious cut off point with the orange road-work barriers. it feels so artificial, like im in some cartoon racer where everything outside of the city race track is blocked off. i'd much rather they move the city around, make the racetrack smaller or even make the city smaller if it came to what felt like a natural end. my biggest problem is they've made it feel like like you're in a small part of a much larger world which is blocked off beyond your reach where personally i'd rather they made the map feel like it IS the world, where there's a whole city and whole bridge and whole highway even if they're smaller, and no obvious blocked-off roads.
this is just my two cents, i understand some people may have had enough with islands but the best thing about an island is you can put everything there and ignore the rest of the world, you dont have to break the immersion by cutting off everything that would've led to a place that doesn't actually exist

 

Can someone explain to me why the maximum world size is 4km by 4km, there are some modded maps that push that to 12 by 12 but they lack smoothness... I know this is related to height maps but is there a way to make even bigger maps without sacrificing detail?

 

Performance? People have problem running 2x2 maps, most of them can't run Italy at all.

 

Most people ignore the minimum specs and run it on their moms laptop.

 

it's to do with the resolution of the heightmaps. the big maps (16x16, etc) just use a scaled up 4x4 or 2x2 resolution heightmap.

 

But why can't the height map be a higher resolution?

 

Instead of the highway stretching from one end of the map and ending at the other, what about a highway that loops around the map kind of like how the high-speed track is set up in Gridmap? It would offer scenic views of the map while you're cruising around 100mph on the highway.

 

I've updated my version of improved Big WCA. It's still nowhere near finished, but hey:


Added:

*A new park, called Millings Park

*A new town to the north, called "Cherry Town", with an airfield called "Fink Field" and a dirt road area

*A new port to the south

*A Lombard-esque street in the center

*Much more freeway to the north

*More roads around the Crater Lake analogue

*A train yard

Improved:

*Belasco International Airport (BLX) (made smaller and with more runways)

*Northern suburbs (more roads in that area)

*The center of Belasco (much cleaner and neater)

Also, yes, I've taken some inspiration from GTA 5 with Cherry Town and the shape of BLX. Again, all suggestions are welcome.

 

Good luck! Looking forward to it.

 

it is my favourite map due to the large city area, But it isn't much multipurpose in this map, I kinda wish there were the occasional dirt roads and offroad tracks that end and you can drive through the bush till you find a road again

 

I love the open fields in Italy, that's my favorite aspect of the map. It's so much fun to thrash an offroad car through those fields and try no to lose it, and its also a ton of fun to take an improperly equipped street car and lose control into those fields. I wish more maps had open spaces like those fields, because its no fun to lose control and crash into a tree or building at 80mph. I'd rather lose control into an open field and roll my car; the destruction in that case is far more satisfying.

 

Reimagining the map to 4x4km like Italy would just be the most sensible option, because then the map would be able to spread out its plans alot better without trying to cramp in some last minute details on a pretty crowded space. The flow of the map is very important for driving enjoyment.

 

Rebuilding WCUSA would take too much time and effort. Better option is just polish it (there are a lot of things that need to be fixed) and then make Belasco South and rename this map for Belasco North and make somewhere one road that would work as a loading zone between two of them.

 

Did anybody say "dream West Coast USA map"?

 

you got some big dreams there alright

 

Well, I would also like to have some 800 cars, 100 boats and 50 aircraft to go with it.

 

if only dreams came true (not saying they don't but, well... you know)