How To Insult A Mapper ?
oOTOo
Join Date: 2003-04-11 Member: 15401Members
Join Date: 2003-04-11 Member: 15401Members
I need to know your opinion because i'm involved in a strange situation.
I use to browse a french site about NS <a href='http://www.ns-fr.com' target='_blank'>(this one)</a>, and i told there that i had been surprised not finding even one news about the fact 2 maps in the NS3.0 beta release were mapped by our national (french) fellows. I supposed that french NS community would have been happy (happy for the mappers at least) to know this info, was i crazy to suppose so ?
But it didn't happen as i was expecting. And then the "discusses" went to an absurd land :
I realized that these guys absolutely scorn maps that don't fit with scrimming ! They don't tell it but it's obvious. It appears that, for them, maps like Bast, Agora, Hera, those pure gems among other pure gems, are considered like **** : "easy to make" (!?), etc. These guys even don't know how it's difficult to build such maps.. it's unbelievable to state that such maps are easy to make. And i'm not talking about 12 years stupid L337 kids, but about guys involved in Clan Base and Lans' organisation !
As expected, they quote Tanith, Eclipse and Veil as only 3 interesting maps (for them, "scrimmers") .. but it's ok for us too, we all know here that these 3 maps for example are nice maps too, hard worked and well built. Anyway, i'm sure too that their respective mapper consider Bast and other maps with respect and interest because as mappers they know how it's difficult to full build a map.
So, this "Not Interesting Enough To Be Quoted In A News" attitude, coming from a so told generalist NS website, is in my opinion .. a kind of insulting. How do you feel, what do you think about it ? I would be interested to know.
I use to browse a french site about NS <a href='http://www.ns-fr.com' target='_blank'>(this one)</a>, and i told there that i had been surprised not finding even one news about the fact 2 maps in the NS3.0 beta release were mapped by our national (french) fellows. I supposed that french NS community would have been happy (happy for the mappers at least) to know this info, was i crazy to suppose so ?
But it didn't happen as i was expecting. And then the "discusses" went to an absurd land :
I realized that these guys absolutely scorn maps that don't fit with scrimming ! They don't tell it but it's obvious. It appears that, for them, maps like Bast, Agora, Hera, those pure gems among other pure gems, are considered like **** : "easy to make" (!?), etc. These guys even don't know how it's difficult to build such maps.. it's unbelievable to state that such maps are easy to make. And i'm not talking about 12 years stupid L337 kids, but about guys involved in Clan Base and Lans' organisation !
As expected, they quote Tanith, Eclipse and Veil as only 3 interesting maps (for them, "scrimmers") .. but it's ok for us too, we all know here that these 3 maps for example are nice maps too, hard worked and well built. Anyway, i'm sure too that their respective mapper consider Bast and other maps with respect and interest because as mappers they know how it's difficult to full build a map.
So, this "Not Interesting Enough To Be Quoted In A News" attitude, coming from a so told generalist NS website, is in my opinion .. a kind of insulting. How do you feel, what do you think about it ? I would be interested to know.
Comments
Granted, anything you make will have at least one person who loves it, one person who hates it, and (in this community) 18 people demanding more lighting contrast, but you can learn a lot from the response you get from the <i>general</i> player population.
In regard to the actual topic, if its a bad mapping community over there, get out. Don't read what they say. Or, better yet, challenge them to do better and see how long it takes to create such an "easy to make" map.
KFS, if you don't light your eclipse or veil like they are currently, if you darken them (in order to get "darker atmosphere") i mean, these guys will say that your map sucks not because of the gameplay but because THEY think that dark atmosphere sucks and has no place in gameplay, no matter what I (a ffa player) or others think. It means no more Hera, Bast, Nothing, Caged, Origin, Mineshaft, Nancy, etc.. famous and appreciated maps too.
Anyways, back to the topic at hand...
I think a big part of the problem is the "atmosphere > anything else" attitude that is prevalent here in this community. There's this real sense that the only thing that matters is darkness (which != atmosphere) and high contrast lighting on often excessively and pointlessly detailed geometry. All the pretty features in the world aren't enough if the map can't even function properly. On the flip side, we see a polarization towards the gameplay-only maps, freefall and siege style. These show a focus only on gameplay (granted, a different type) and little or flat-out no emphasis on visual quality. And as much as others rain death upon these, people still love to play them.
A little less atmosphere over gameplay and gameplay over atmosphere and a little more atmosphere balanced evenly with gameplay could go a long ways towards solving this sort of issue.
I think a big part of the problem is the "atmosphere > anything else" attitude that is prevalent here in this community. There's this real sense that the only thing that matters is darkness (which != atmosphere) and high contrast lighting on often excessively and pointlessly detailed geometry. All the pretty features in the world aren't enough if the map can't even function properly. On the flip side, we see a polarization towards the gameplay-only maps, freefall and siege style. These show a focus only on gameplay (granted, a different type) and little or flat-out no emphasis on visual quality. And as much as others rain death upon these, people still love to play them.
A little less atmosphere over gameplay and gameplay over atmosphere and a little more atmosphere balanced evenly with gameplay could go a long ways towards solving this sort of issue. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I think most of that comes from the difficulty of assessing gameplay from screenshots. Its easy to say "damn that looks cool" and a lot more difficult to say, "That looks like a great spot for a dynamic pitched battle. The area looks just large enough to lay down a cramped siege spot, but too small for the marines to leverage their range advantage. One problem though is that it looks like the clipping around that pipe might unduly influence skulk throughput and could make coming from the south an annoyance."
There are buzz words that go around, and the way new people learn to critique screens they see is by using them. "Not enough cover for skulks" and "too bright, no hiding spots for skulks" are what I would consider two examples of this. (Not that these critiques are invalid, but they seem to be overused). If you want better gameplay based critique around here, start dishing it out. Set an example of how one can and should think about the gameplay of a map. Having made two excellent, beautiful, fun, and match worthy maps, you are clearly skilled at it, and I'm sure we all could learn a lot. I think when people learn how gameplay can be best analyzed they will pick it up themselves, and the quality of the feedback around here generally will improve. (That said, I think in your own work you could pick up a bit more of the emphasis on atmosphere. Some parts of veil do seem like you were getting a little sick of wall_lab <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo--> )
On the flipside of this, if we want more gameplay based criticism, we're going to have to take screenshots not just based on what shows the most dramatic angle, but also what shows the layout of the area most clearly.
What does 'sexify' mean?
please dont type the response that I feel would explain the obvious translation.
Or my PC will explode off an immense conniption fit.
<!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo-->
People do need to start seriously considering the effect on gameplay design decisions will have a bit more though i think. Just because it looks quite cool doesn't mean it's a winner, i mean, look at mineshaft. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Map how you want to map, if your happy with it, then thats good. You will never get >80% of the population to like your map, no matter what you do.
eclipse and tanith for sure.
touché <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.natural-selection.org/forums/html//emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->.
Let me explain my point of view of a veteran of map balance. Yes only 3 maps are played over and over (for those who dont know: veil, eclipse, tanith). That s not because we like the textures to death but:
* They each share the same layout: 2-3 ways to get to each location, 2-3 choke points (PSJ3/SL, East junction/Cargo, Cargo/Chemical).
* Cleverly put slopes that helps alien bhop in hot spots (South Loop, Power, Chemical)
* Hives are neither too hard (as Surface Access in metal) to siege or too easy (Sewer in Agora, "red room" in nothing).
* For each of those maps, you have to fight for your RTs, nowadays we see more and more maps where mappers just "give" out free RTs (lost and Gorge's hideout in ayumi). When we see the importance of 1 RT in scrims, we can really question the mappers thinking of putting 1 node free for aliens.
* Same than before the number of RTs are important. For me hera is now the BGH of NS (for those who know starcraft). There is no way any team can check a number of nodes this big.
So mendasp, it isnt because we only like those 3, but on all NS maps only those 3 have those characteristics. If mappers put more time in playtesting maps, and less into pure graphics, it will be better for all of us. Let me finish that by one question: Do you have good memories of Duke Nukem/Doom/______(insert the name of your favorite old shooter) because of its graphics or its gameplay?
And for you oOTOo, because i am guessing who you are. This site was made by and for scrimmers. They give you their opinions. And that s all it is worth: their opinion. However there should be some communication between clanners and mappers, not all of us speaks 133-7 and some (gasp!) are even interested in mapping.
Both. I couldn't stand playing games like doom now, it's gameplay feels horrible, but the graphics where so sweet back when pentium 1 was l33t(e.g. I have good memories of doom).
Duke nukem had much nicer gameplay, the main character is humorous and the interactions where very nice, you could put out a bunch of pipebombs and blow them all at once, put out trip mines, you could blow up parts of the map, walking in corpses left nifty blood tracks, you could blow up things inside the maps, they weren't just dead with the exception of doors, you could jump and fly(jetpack), multiplayer was nice(with the exceptions of shotguns being super powerfull). I don't think I would much enjoy duke3d today because there are so many games which look much nicer and have the same level of interactivity(and better).
I think that concentrating on just gameplay or just graphics will be just as bad. If eclipse, veil and tanith had much superior gameplay to all other maps and horrible graphics(which they don't) I don't think I would still prefer them over other maps.
If in Ecplise for example you want to go to a hive, you just take a random, wide corridor and follow it until you reach a hive. In Bast you'll have to move down elevators, through airlocks and through long tunnels. Making it feel more as if you're playing a part in a movie then just fighting the enemy in the most efficient way.
It's hard to exactly describe it, because it isn't about the looks of the level (Eclipse also looks fantastic), but more about the feeling I get when moving around in the level while playing the game.
In fact, my critic wasn't about underlining only 3 maps are played by scrimmers, but about the fact scrimmers are not the only noticeable players in the NS community and that their (usually bad) opinion about atmospheric maps are no more than personal opinions. I mean that there are other opinions and i pointed out that the site i linked to is right now the main one in France and (should be) ought to be fairly generalist and not only "written by scrimmers for scrimmers"..
On the other hand, your description of reasons why these 3 maps are ok for scrimming is pretty interesting and valuable. Anyway, i like Red room <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
The better choice would be to allow admins to ... disallow acces of certain areas in some maps (red room, etc) during a scrimming, to make the map more "scrimmable" and, at the same time, allowing mappers to free their imagination. A NEW ENTITY controlling the vertical Hull with an info_location scheme ? <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html//emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->
edit : ortho
Now in normal play that section will allways be playable, except for the unlikely event of it coming up in the trigger_random entity. Use of mutliple trigger_randoms would exponentially reduce that chance even further.
Being fun to play should be the first priority, looking good the second, IMO.
By the way, ns_caged seems to me like it would be a fine map to scrim on... Any particular reason it isn't included with the other ones? The only thing I can think of is the advantage of starting in vent, and the large distances between the hives, but this isn't really that bad, is it?
I think that most of the maps play very well, personally although I can accept that not all are perfectly balanced, so arent suitable for competiion.