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Yardrats_Halloween
     Yardrats Originally created by SpiLL[HCH]
     Updated, with Halloween decorations and sounds by qUiCkSiLvEr 31Oct2002
     RMF compiled with all fixes and updates implemented 17Jan2003.
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This map is a complete recompile with extensive decorations and sound files.
A number of problems were fixed with great assistance by the awesome Grimlock.

This map is wonderful with 6 players or more and lends itself to many different
styles of play including stalking, sniping, camping, running and gunning, and
just hysterical fun with the low-gravity suit (idea shamelessly borrowed from
OneSneakYmouse's map RestroomRats).
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Description:       This map is an outdoor fun map in the Rats scale genre that
                   has been extensively decorated and animated for Halloween
                   (but fun to play year around!).

                   The map is very tall with a large open central yard area and
                   many levels of play, from the rain gutters and shingles on the
                   roof down to the drainage area under the grate in the floor.

                   The yard is stocked with a large toolshed, a water cistern with
                   water flowing down from the rain gutters on the roof, a large
                   green trash can, a clothes line with a moving basket, a tree stump
                   that is a bounce pad (catapult really!) and a shootable light
                   fixture over the door.

                   The toolshed is stocked with all sorts of implements, and as one
                   would expect there are a few spider webs and spiders in there.

                   Like many rats maps, the walls have corridors and ladders
                   as well as lifts and warps to greatly enhance connectivity.
                   (did I mention a few secrets too?)

                   For a little additional fun, a low-gravity suit is provided
                   that will let players fly across the map in a single bound,
                   but don't fly too high or your wings will get clipped!

                   The Halloween decorations include: large pumpkin warps on the
                   ground, a disappearing ghost tree over a stump in the ground,
                   a cross for a buried pet "Fido" (don't wake him up now!), ghosts,
                   a full moon overhead with a witch that flys by from time to time,
                   an occasional lightning bolt, green and red glow sticks courtesy
                   of Grimlock, animated (and scary) spiders running on the webs,
                   and two flying bats playing over the water cistern.

                   The Halloween sound effects include ghosts shrieking, the witch
                   laughing, a very scary voice saying "You can't see me, but I can
                   see you" (quite appropriate for this map!), deep eerie chuckling,
                   a woman screaming, thunder cracks after the lightning and a dog
                   barking whenever a player joins the map (dogs should bark when
                   strangers come by!).

                   In addition, a button will play the music "MonsterMash" for a
                   little added entertainment while players are sniping and fragging
                   away!

                   The shootable light fixture creates two very different light levels
                   from spooky moonlight to a bright wash of light across the yard to
                   reveal those lurking campers and snipers.

                   There are many, many places to hide and snipe and camp but the
                   central area is just great for running and gunning across the sculpted
                   ground (thanks Grimlock!) and pumpkin warps as added escapes or
                   accidents depending on your strategy.

                   The lifts are all very fast reacting and have catcher warps at the
                   top to prevent players from getting stuck on the gore.  Don't try
                   to put tripmines in the shafts though or you will be surprised!

                   All in all this is a very novel, entertaining and challenging map
                   for Half-Life Death Match.

Map Source:        SpiLL was great and sent me the original RMF for this map, YEA!

Decorations:       All the decorations were fully tested and run using the original
                   Yardrats map using Botman's awesome Stripper2 program.

Fixes:             Complete central area ground and walls retextured by Grimlock.
                   Many textures re-applied, several transparent textures were
                   cleaned up, several stick points were fixed, warps were added
                   in all the lifts to fix the problem of players getting stuck on the
                   gore.  The warps in the pumpkins on the ground greatly enhanced
                   connectivity on this quite tall map.

                   Grimlock graciously went thru the map and fixed some serous stick
                   points on the ground and in the gravity lift shaft as well as tweaks
                   and adjustments to optimize the map for better R_Speeds.

Compile:           The updates were all done with Valve Hammer and Zoner's great tools.
                   The map compiles (full vis with extra radiosity) in about 13 minutes
                   on an 850Mhz P3 under WinXP.

Other Tools:       Wally, MilkShape, HLMV, MSImager2, MGI Photosuite SPRwiz, BSP_view,
                   Quark, and anything else that I had that would do what I needed to do.

Weapons and ammo:  Everything!
                   Lots of ammo and weapons all over the place.
                   Lots of health and batteries (for HEV)

Spawn Points:      13 (of course!) arranged somewhat to minimize sequential respawns

Skybox:            The skybox is custom modified from a skybox called "backalley".
                   Please note that only TGA's were available so players running
                   low-res in software mode probably won't see the skybox.

WADS:              The WAD file was extracted from the original Yardrats and
                   several transparent textures were cleaned up.

Models:            There are two custom models here. One is a tree originally from DOD
                   that I rescaled to fit the map.  The other is a really nice
                   pumpkin model originally created by Jeffrey R Chaplin (a.k.a. 'CASE')
                   for the QuakeCon 2001 Map Object Model Contest. I converted and
                   recompiled the model for HalfLife.

                   In addition, a sprites model and a skull model are used from the
                   HL distribution.

Enhancements:      Decorations, sound effects, sprites, animated sprites, models,
                   extra weapons, health, armor, low-gravity suit, music, secrets ...

Overview files:    A custom Spectator overview image and text file is included.

Download Time:     The basic map BSP is typically a 5 to 10 minute d/l but the monstermash
                   music is largish and adds an additional 5-10 minutes.  The entire
                   package (map, models, sounds, sprites and overview) is a longish download
                   about 20 to 25 minutes for a reasonable connection.

                   I recommend that servers that wish to optimize their d/l time delete
                   or rename the sound/halloween/monstermash.wav file and let players
                   download the music offline as part of the zip distribution package.

                   Further d/l time savings can be acheived by commenting out the two
                   overview files in the Yardrats_Halloween.res file.

Testing:           This map has been extensively tested by TEAM USA including:
                   Abie, X-15, Rev, MrT, Darth Sailor, Peace Keeper, eljefe, Sniper,
                   Shadow Santa and Seanasty.

Dedication:        I want to thank all the Team USA group including Grimlock for the
                   endless encouragement and ideas and time ... I made this map for
                   them to have a unique place to play and have fun and grow together!
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notes:             Servers running this map must set the CVAR mp_allowmonsters 1 for the
                   models to appear.  because of an odd initialization quirk in the HL
                   engine, the server must be restarted at least once for this CVAR to
                   take effect.

                   The map has a great many entities that are visible all the time from one
                   player position.  Some slower computers and graphics cards may not like
                   this very much.

                   Players may still (very occasionally) get stuck on the lifts at the
                   very bottom.

                   Because tripmines in the lift shafts may cause the lift to jam up, a
                   low-level hurt is implemented in all lift shafts to blow the tripmines up.
 
                   Above all, HAVE FUN!  This map can be run year-around, not just for Halloween.
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Install: put the Yardrats_Halloween.BSP, Yardrats_Halloween.RES and Yardrats_Halloween.TXT files
             into the valve/maps directory.

         put the Halloween??.tga files into the valve/gfx/env directory.

         put the sprite files (*.spr) into the valve sprites directory.

         put the two overview files (Yardrats_Halloween.BMP and Yardrats_Halloween.TXT)
             into the valve/overview directory.

         put the model files (*.mdl) into the valve/models directory.

         put the sound files (*.wav) into the valve/sound/Halloween directory.

         The zip archive is set up for easy install from the valve directory using pathnames.

Enjoy!
    qUiCkSiLvEr

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