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I'm mostly thinking of 1on1 but I guess it applies to all game modes. Almost everybody agrees that maps stagnation is an issue. An healthy game should have map cycles and renovation to keep the gameplay evolving and the scene growing.
I might have a limited overview of the current situation, but this is what I notice.
* Lack of new mappers. It seems to me that the number went down together with the game popularity (talking about q3), and that at the moment there is only a handful of mappers scattered here and there. The fact that QL is not officially supporting external mapping is not helping inverting the tendency.
* Lack of knowledge of what makes a good map. There are tons of tutorial about making maps from a technical point of view. But when it comes to good maps gameplay-wise, google is no longer your friend.
* Lack of an infrastructure for mappers. By infrastructure I mean the part where the quality of the map (in terms of its playability) is truly tested and good feedback is given. More precisely there are different things that screw this process: 1) Most people are lazy and will not download a map unless it's at a super polished state and others already tested it 2) Even when someone does spend the time trying the map, quality of the feedback is not granted at all.
3) Virtually nobody vote for maps that have not been played in tournaments, regardless of the long process they went through to be on the server.
Let's now consider what happened with t7, which is one of the few successful cases lately. It was released at a very polished state both visually and in terms of gameplay, which is something that screams for internal prior testing. After that, there were these testing session were beta users were kindly invited to play the map and give feedback, and the map evolved quickly toward what we know now. Finally it was included in official tournaments map pools, which basically is what seals the deal when it comes to maps.
I wonder if it could be possible to find the right formula such that mappers could have support along these lines. As I repeated countless times, the good thing about quake live is that there is a recognized authority that can propose things which the people will follow, so if there is a place this can happen, I think is QL.
What do you think?
I might have a limited overview of the current situation, but this is what I notice.
* Lack of new mappers. It seems to me that the number went down together with the game popularity (talking about q3), and that at the moment there is only a handful of mappers scattered here and there. The fact that QL is not officially supporting external mapping is not helping inverting the tendency.
* Lack of knowledge of what makes a good map. There are tons of tutorial about making maps from a technical point of view. But when it comes to good maps gameplay-wise, google is no longer your friend.
* Lack of an infrastructure for mappers. By infrastructure I mean the part where the quality of the map (in terms of its playability) is truly tested and good feedback is given. More precisely there are different things that screw this process: 1) Most people are lazy and will not download a map unless it's at a super polished state and others already tested it 2) Even when someone does spend the time trying the map, quality of the feedback is not granted at all.
3) Virtually nobody vote for maps that have not been played in tournaments, regardless of the long process they went through to be on the server.
Let's now consider what happened with t7, which is one of the few successful cases lately. It was released at a very polished state both visually and in terms of gameplay, which is something that screams for internal prior testing. After that, there were these testing session were beta users were kindly invited to play the map and give feedback, and the map evolved quickly toward what we know now. Finally it was included in official tournaments map pools, which basically is what seals the deal when it comes to maps.
I wonder if it could be possible to find the right formula such that mappers could have support along these lines. As I repeated countless times, the good thing about quake live is that there is a recognized authority that can propose things which the people will follow, so if there is a place this can happen, I think is QL.
What do you think?
Edited by Memento_Mori at 09:21 CDT, 7 September 2009 - 7583 Hits
