Darklord Manor

Download Darklord Manor
Download In the Shadows

Quote during one of the many very tense and exciting matches of In the Shadows on Darklord Manor.
Me “Where’s the Last Man Standing?!”
Maniacal Death “He’s in the attic, hiding like a woman” lol.

Darklord Manor is the latest map designed for the In the Shadows (ItS) gametype created by Asper49 and AZN FTW (the two Guilders I have actually played with and playtested my map with), and it must be played with that gametype (or any infection variant but ItS is what it was made for). If there are 2-5 players in the game at the start there is one Assassin. 6-8 players, 2 Assassins will be hunting you down. 9-12 players, there are 3 killers on the loose. And a full party will require some serious teamwork because every corner could have 4 sneaky invisible shooters staring you in the face and they’re not happy lol. The Manor was inspired by Asper’s and AZN’s (along with the other forgers that contributed) map the Estate and Coolant’s map Vents. Both maps were great but I wondered if I could take the best elements of both maps and combine them into one crazy map (and I assure this map is crazy, it will take many playthroughs to completely understand the layout). The Estate had a very manor-like theme to it so I named my map after that. You may think ‘Darklord Manor?’ “He named his map after himself? That’s kind of vain” but the reason for that is I didn’t really have a good name for the map when I was telling my friends about it, it was just Manor. So during the build process I put my name in front of Manor and it just kind of stuck with me and my friends. Anyways both of the first ItS maps were very entertaining but I felt that they were kind of small (particularly Vents) but that’s understandable considering the budget glitch had not been discovered yet. As soon as I found out about the glitch I decided I would take on my biggest project to date. It really was, taking over 40 hours to complete. I have actually had the map finished and ready since late March so this is kind of overdue but I think people who enjoyed the original Estate (nothing beats the original) and people who just like having lots of fun will definitely have a blast with this map. This is not a competitive map as there are no weapons on the map. It is very awkward on anything but Infection (although Assault might have been playable with correct weapon placements). This map will be very tense and scary at many times keeping you on the edge of your seat. I used LOTS of interlocking (about 80% to 90% of the map) and merged with the map geometry in several places. But enough of this intro, you probably just want to see some pics and how the game plays out huh? Well I won’t keep you waiting.

OK, the outside I will admit is very plain but lucky for you it doesn’t even make up Â¼ of foundry’s sizeJ. I would’ve added scenery in the front of the house but I focused on content inside of the house since that’s where the action will take place, until the point where I completely used everything I could (even with the budget glitch!). Want to see what I mean? Go into the forge monitor mode, go to the front of the house, and look at it and you will lol.

Off-topic anywaysss… the zombies (assassins) spawn in the front outside where the garage looking structures are. They don’t have to worry about being killed when they spawn because by the time humans (mercs) look outside the killers are already cloaked and sneaking their way into the house.
Humans spawn in various locations, some grouped in open, easily infiltrated spaces while others spawn isolated but in very secure or hard to reach places.

4 spawn on the semi-open second floor.
3 spawn in the somewhat cozier Indoor Theatre.
3 more spawn in the Garage filled with vehicles providing cover and some clever hiding spots.
And for the 2 lonely but protected humans 1 spawns in the Ping Pong room (yes Ping Pong room lol) with only one entrance, but is susceptible to grenade attacks through the windows.
The other human spawns in the Attic (3rd floor) by himself with only 2 obvious ways up. One of them isn’t available till 3 minutes into the game plus the not so apparent way up that skilled jumpers can reach fairly easily, details later.

Now that the spawns are out of the way lets get to the layout. In Darklord Manor there are MANY rooms and many ways to get into those rooms. The Manor includes a

Lobby

Indoor Theatre

Garage

Above the Garage

Explosives Room

Ping Pong Room

2nd floor

Attic with balcony view

On to the special features that will make you feel like the spy that you’ve always wanted to be (lol) or a nervous merc staining his pants when 4 assassins are about to close in for the kill.

Going Up!- I needed a fast easy way to get to either the 2nd floor and the Attic areas of the map so I placed a man cannon under the floorboards in the middle of the lobby that when you walk on to, depending on the speed your walking, it will shoot you up to the higher floors (takes a bit of practice to get the floor you want every time). But this fast transportation comes with its drawbacks. Every time someone goes on the elevator it sends a loud echo throughout the Manor alerting everyone to your position so use it with caution.

The Floorboards- OK this idea was taken from Estate but is completely different in a couple ways. First, there is no “cover” under the floorboards. The reasons for this is when I played the Estate I found it was one of the easiest places to camp as a human because the zombies speed advantage would essentially be nullified since they are forced to crouch and you can spot them fairly easy because your eyes are trained one location meaning the slightest disturbance in your FOV would alert even the “slowest players”. Another reason I didn’t add cover was I ran out of barriers using them everywhere elseJ. OK. The second way its different is that there are more ways in and out of the crawlspace and you can even destroy a pallet and hop up to the Lobby to create a surprise attack from below.

Air Ducts- My favorite thing about the map Vents was of course the vents included so I had to put some sort of crawlspace that runs throughout the house in my map. Darklord Manor has two main air ducts but they are elevated and lead to many parts of the house. There is one on the right side of the house which can either lead to the Indoor Theatre or the 2nd floor.

The second vent is located deeper inside the house and can either lead up to the Attic or create a surprise dropdown to the Lobby area. You will have many good times sneaking through them, knowing that a human is about to fall by your hand.

Explosive Results- In the hallway leading to the Ping Pong Room there are many fusion coils and propane tanks lined up. This makes the Ping Pong Room fairly easy to defend seeing as that’s the only way in (but grenades can still be tossed in through the windows). Once one of the explosives is disturbed that’s when everything in the hallway area is basically vaporized, but you can only use the explosion once per round. Be careful not to get caught in your own trap!

Pallets Galore- Throughout the Manor there are many pallets separating rooms, blocking entrances, and even serving as a nice hiding spot until it is broken. They also act kind of like an early warning system if a zombie is sneaking up behind you. The pallet will provide audible and visual clues. If you hear a pallet breaking near you, it may be time to move out of the area. If you see broken pieces falling from the ceiling it might be more than rats this time (it also causes their invisibility to fade for a couple of seconds every time they melee or shoot).

OK. Now for the Strategies/Tips/Hints and the wrap up with action screens. Well some general tips for humans are STICK TOGETHER (unless you spawn isolated because those are pretty nice spawns but if you hate being by yourself then find a buddy). Teamwork is very important especially if you’re moving to a different location make sure watch each others backs at all times. Humans can also lay down suppressive fire to aid their teammates if they are being chased by a zombie (a smart zombie will generally retreat when confronted by two or more humans) be careful not to waste all of your LIMITED ammo though (you can collect ammo from your fallen mercs corpses). Humans can also hold certain rooms reasonably easy if there is enough cooperation but that doesn’t mean a well placed grenade can’t equal a nice overkillJ. Zombies have a couple useful strategies as well. They are very good at creating diversions, for example; one zombie could fire randomly in a hidden location to throw humans off as to where the other ones are and make them think that you are closer than you really are. The switchback technique developed by me and Blue127 is where you fire at a human while you are partially hidden to get them to notice you and hopefully chase you when you retreat while your partner hidden nearby waits until he passes by and melee’s his face for a very satisfying kill involving teamwork and trickery. Both humans and zombies can “boost” each other up to higher levels then would be inaccessible without a partner. You can also do some weird jumps by yourself. In one spot on the 2nd floor you can hop up to the ledge than runs across the entire higher level of Foundry and turn around to jump up to the Attic. It takes some practice but is the fastest way up before the mancannon spawns. Well this has been a very LONG description especially for a first post but I worked hard on the map so I felt I should work hard on the description too. But anyways here are some nice action screens that should feel very relaxing after all that reading :P.

Special thanks to...
Blue127 for taking the action shots and for support all the time
Nitemarenick for making me laugh all the time when playing with me lol
Asper49 and AZN FTW for give me the encouragement to finally publish this map....

And to everyone else who playtested this with me and gave me positive feedback...

Download Darklord Manor
Download In the Shadows

Please rate and leave comments/constructive criticism on this thread as well as the Bungie thread. Hope you all enjoy the mapJ!!