Small correction, map name in the OP should be cp_sunshine_rc9 instead of rc7. Unless ESEA is suddenly reverting back two versions for this one match :p

Oh whoops. Guess that slipped by everybody involved. Will wait a day or so and see if there are any more bugs, then patch that out.

Sunshine is now officially in-game! There's been a lot of changes.

Here's a changelog of almost all the major ones (might have missed one or two):

• Blocked sightline from cafe to second
• Raised said door 8u
• Moved cover from cafe to mid in order to make standing on tetris unable to see players pushing through cafe
• Moved and raised doorways exiting cafe in order to support pushing through more
• Moved high ground next to lighthouse down by 48u, aligning it with the high exit from lobby
• Extended out high exit from lobby to make fighting easier
• Changed cover in flowers/valley in order to prevent players standing on fences, and seeing too much
• Moved barrel arrangement on shutter door side of last back 32u
• Raised fence between choke and second by 32u to block sightline
• Opened up the wall between left and right lobby
• Fixed visual glitch with one way windows in last spawn
• Simplified cubbyhole in bottom lobby
• Pushed upper side choke into last forward a bit, created new space for teams to play in – entrance is now closer to last
• Extended fence next to upper side choke to ceiling to prevent players from standing on top
• Major changes to shutter door side of last: if you enter shutter door, you can no longer be spotted from players in last and you have a safer entrance area around pack
• Moved shutter door over significantly, eliminating line of sight from shutter into last
• Shifted around geometry in shutter side lobby to better work with sightlines and encourage teams to use shutter side more
• Filled in useless area that used to connect to what used to be secret
• Edited displacements on mid to make the sightline under the church unusable
• Added planks underneath church to make sightline under church from choke to choke unusable
• Shortened openings on long sides of church to make visibility from shack more limited

Whooooaaa. So many changes.

The medic heal speed matching is wild. Can't wait to see that in action.

All the improvements I've made to the map were in the periods of time containing post-rc9 release and post-valve-contact time. Up until the very final deadline I was able to make whatever changes I wanted, and I had full control over the creative process.

I plan to update the map periodically when it goes official based on feedback from any tourneys it is present in, similar to what is done with CS:GO competitive maps.

The best part about it going official is that it's included within any content updates, and you don't have to manually download it separately from the rest of your tf2 files. The map will be constantly updated on everybody's end!

There's a whole lengthy list of changes from rc9 to the ingame version that I've made based on league and player feedback. Unsure if I should drop the changelog before the update hits, but rest assured - lots of stuff has been worked on.

The first version of this map was posted August 10, 2013 on tf2maps.net. Who would have thought, 3 years later, that the map would be one of my crowning achievements and would end up in game with the OFFICIAL matchmaking update that everyone has been excited for years for.

I am so pumped, y'all have no idea. So thankful for everyone who has tested and played the map during its development.

"Near future" most likely not - only because the map has quite a ways to go! It may look good but there are quite a few major gameplay changes it needs before I would even think about treating it as near-final. Maybe in the future, who knows!

Here we goooooo!

For folks wondering: Sunshine's new ~updated~ official version has lots of things changed, lots of improvements and fixes. Can't wait for people to see it. So excited.

This was such an exciting match up until the pause. God damnit, man. Here's hoping the inT v Froyo match is stable. Hopefully inT doesn't let this get them down and goes into the Froyo match with the same vigor they had earlier tonight - they were really a force to be reckoned with.

i feel honoured

if only i was this good

the gamma doppler is like everything i've ever wanted on a knife, that jade-green is awesome

man if phorofor leaves bird noises i feel bad for them, they've got the short end of the stick so many times this season

Sadly we as mapmakers can't force overlays to render when your client has disabled them. That's why nearly all the most relevant signs in Sunshine are props, and why the layout of Reckoner tries to tend you toward certain routes. Lots of comp players play without overlays, which is something to think about when designing maps for comp (which, in fairness, abyss has not been designed for comp)

This might be a confusing paintover at first. I was lazy with screenshots so I just combined all my feedback in one image with different colors. Bear with me. I'll explain everything.

http://i.imgur.com/EiaQLCh.jpg

First up: the second half of the rollout feels really off. As it stands, probably the quickest method of getting to mid is the skip jump denoted by the orange arrows on the right, but this requires getting up to and through the awkwardly placed shipping container (green box) before it, which either requires a long U-turn or an awkward short jump wasting health. The other doors don't provide many good jump options, it's either a strange couple jumps through valley or a walk through the inner rooms in the middle.

I don't like how you have to go around behind everything to get onto the high ground in the lobby. The quickest way I can see is denoted by the red arrow, and even that is really out of the way.

I also don't like how you require to own the pink square on last in order to climb up the right side. This means as soon as a team pushes in through that side and occupies that space, the defenders physically cannot use the right side of the last because the only way you can get up requires walking into the pink square, which is very far forward. This will make teams want to hold on the left side nearly all of the time, because of the short transit distance between high ground and the easy path from spawn. The right spawn door exit becomes completely useless as soon as you are holding last.

Second is also weirdly disjointed for any non-jumping class. If you're stuck on the low ground where the yellow circle is, you only have two nearby options for getting back up to the high ground (yellow arrows), which are both rather convoluted and require backtracking a lot of ground. (The lower yellow arrow isn't too bad, but it could still be improved I think... unless you're going for some sort of Badlands feel, in that case the point needs to be a lot more visible and open than it is now.)

Similarly, if you're on the low ground denoted by the blue circles, you have exceptionally long transit times, one of which is a very particular jump from the nearby red crate to the highground.

Speaking of second, I absolutely abhor the geometry of the room highlighted by the light-blue square. It feels like something out of the depths of Mario 64, not something that belongs in a fast-paced shooter. That tiny catwalk looks like the worst thing to fight on in the middle of a fight.

Last: I really don't like the way the small hut (pink quadrilateral) is set up in relation to the paths at mid. Soldiers holding the hut-thing get free health, and total control over valley: it's very hard to counter jump this position as a single jump needs to be rather far forward to reach, and double jumps would take away a lot of health. A soldier on this hut can very easily bounce back to the upper catwalk (jump denoted by orange arrow from left) and gain another small healthpack and similar views of the other entrances (denoted by purple arrows). I think these healthkits give these positions a little too much power over what will probably be the flank routes, since any combo pushing valley will always be forced very early before reaching mid by some soldier standing valiantly on hut.

This isn't a ton of feedback, but it's my first thoughts, we'll see how the map plays out.