I wanted to make a forest like in Alice Wonderland with big mushrooms everywhere. Then when I started designing the initial mushroom, I noticed how difficult it would be to make this mushroom, then I made it square, no curves. Like every other feature of the map, it got right angles and it is very simple to design. Look at most maps, they are very well designed but they feel like they are maps made for other designers to appreciate complex geometry and not for gameplay. Sorry for the criticism there. Very good job, sure but some maps seem to put gameplay in the last thought. The name of the game is Cube, we should like right angles too instead of only curves.

Look at modern architecture and minimalism, all the modern design after the 70s of houses, buildings and products got a minimalist and straight edge design. Ideally this map would use only 2 textures and light to change things.

Why not the same modern style in sauer? Maps that are fun to play, easy to make, taking only some days to build it. I wish the new maps in sauer could have this style of archtecture. It could be more fun..

johnkills

Your explanation would fit very well to maps like guacamole or pindakaas (except the "wonderland" part), but not on this map.
It's true that some mappers don't get what flow and gameplay means (or they think they do, but obviously they don't), but don't forget there are some which know what they do. Nevertheless, that's off-topic right now.
Having a cubistic layout is no problem at all, but keep in mind it shouldn't lack (several) other aspects. Take for example such as making diagonal shapes, which can preserve the feeling of being cubistic, yet still looking more complex.
In overall, it actually lacks everything. The flow is very flat and open, while the gameplay isn't great also just because of that. The rest has been made in a hurry that took about 1 hour at highest. It's not a solid map, figuratively but also literally.
Don't get me wrong mate, but maps shouldn't consist out of just some floating cubes, while any other cubes contains just the same texture or another which has been overused also. Neither is the technique of having a lot of light-entities without any light-sources at all (while the entities are also having a very odd colour) paying off plus points (as it looks very ugly and unnatural).

The difference between modern designs and a map like this is that those designs have details, while this one actually has not.

Just start over again and think about a real theme, with some well thought gameplay and flow (which isn't focussed only on instant gib. That type of mode only contains a slice of the actual gameplay within Sauerbraten). You'll get there...

I swear people are starting to use the term minimalism as a means of being lazy with everything.

The idea doesn't necessarily earn you points in your favor, especially when you use it to justify the face that the whole map is nothing but hard corners and hardly any slanted surfaces >_>

Thanks guys for your input and I agree, I have much to learn about making maps but I am a player. Can you honestly say those details matter for gameplay?

Texture, complex structures and architecture out of view during gameplay. Who cares about this? Most players play with texreduce, they dont care about texture.

Take a popular map like reissen or wdcd and make it simple, make it all in one texture and everything in right angles, do you really believe any PLAYERS would think the game is not fun? Players dont care about this. We are talking about players, not map designers.

Take the details out of any map, no players would care about it and since maps are made for players to play sauer..

johnkills

i disagree completely with your statements. take for example a map such as ph_capture or fb_capture and that is an example of slanting that creates good gameplay. all of your comment is strickly your opinion in an attempt to justify your crappy map. now perhaps you should take a look at what you believe to be a good map, for it is wrong. details such as fancy handrails are not needed, but hand rails are a good addition to a map. see my point? im saying that the details in a map have to look appealing, not beautiful. and through looking appealing, it has function and purpose.

You said..
"now perhaps you should take a look at what you believe to be a good map, for it is wrong."

I say.. how many maps in ictf mode do you play everyday? week? month?
The map is my creation, I like it but if a player says "john, your map is really bad" I take no offense, criticism is totally fine from any PLAYER.

Now for me to consider your words more valid, I never seen you playing, how much do you play ictf mode everyday?
Using data from psl games in itcf mode for all time, you have 129 games played. I play that much in a week.
I have close to 10.000 games played, ten thousand. Do you play in other servers? How much have you played ictf mode?
Dont think that is offensive, I only dont know you from game.

Anyone else that wants to say something, please tell me how much you play, if I dont know you. Criticism is welcome, you might be chainsawed more in future maps but only that. :)

johnkills

I drive my car to work everyday, and then back home, thats at least 10 trips per week, which makes over 500, five hundred trips in a year. That in no way automatically means that my car is a really good one. Map is not good, in any way, in its build or its gameplay. This looks like a random coop edit server stuck on auth.

It doesnt make your car a better car but it makes you a more qualified driver than someone that was only driving the car 4 times, since you were driving it 500 times, right? Driving in that path, same car, same way, you would have a higher ability in determining the quality of that product. That is valid for any product.
I am not a better player than anyone, it only means I can evaluate a map in this mode.

I will only read and try not to write anymore because this might turn in a discussion that is going off-topic. Thanks for the criticism, really it is useful but you forgot to say, how much do you play?

cya :)

johnkills

Wait, i got confused now. Are we talking about the experience of a player now or about the map?

Within context though, being a good and frequent player doesn't automatically make you a good mapper, so with that out of the way, you should concentrate on making a map that is not "only gameplay matters".
Don't compare people whose job is to get the most frags with people whose job is to make the maps the former ones like to play in, regardless of settings.

---

Personally, i'm starting to worry with all the people so obsessed with getting a good score on the board that they suddenly think the whole game is about that, and thus maps with crappy texturing, layout and lighting are something worth of praise and that their opinion is more valid than anyone else's because they just play more.

Actually, MOST people play WITHOUT texreduce (just thought i would let you know) and ALL players care about is how well the map is designed, the extra detail is there to make you feel a little more like you are actually IN the game. (i recently got hired on for olive garden, you know what the two most important things are about the food? the wine and the garnish (additives to make the food more appealing, no one wants to eat shitty looking food, in the same way, no one wants to play on a shitty looking map))

Your map is awful, I am a PLAYER for over FIVE years, and i am a MAP MAKER (though a lot of mine came out to be crap because when i was making them, i didn't know what made a good map, plus i have no imagination)

Oh and i thought i would let you know, there are tuts on youtube to explain how to make spheres, and when you take half of a sphere you get a dome, and then you put a rod through the dome and you have a mushroom.

i have you a -3/10 because not only did you say criticism was welcome here and you reject everything we are telling you, but you thought that we only play ictf (we are REAL PLAYERS we play MORE than one goddamn mode), and because you keep saying it was made to be good for gameplay when its not.

work on your lighting, work on texturing, work on editing things. you don't have to go into super detail like sui or cooper does, just make it detailed enough to look good and good enough to ENHANCE gameplay. give it some garnish.

Let me just correct you when you say "ALL players care about is how well the map is designed". I do not care. Sure, it is nice to have, but as far as I'm concerned, the textureset from guacamole would be sufficient for the whole game. I care about gameplay and flow, and as long as it does not disturb gameplay or performance, you can put as many textures, details and whatnot as you like. After texreduce, there's not much left of all the prettiness anyways.

So if you want to use texreduce and unfancy stuff with plain, oversimpled maps, go ahead and play your map. Alone. I'm not going to use texreduce or play your map. Sorry, barely anyone here likes simple (lazy) themes I think.

Some people are just born to play only those orange sandbox maps for Counter Strike you see on fpsbanana. Swaying their opinion is of no use, so don't bother.

That's what I wanted to express with the previous post. I don't bother and he can do whatever he wants with his map.

What's the point of your answer, then?

"BARELY anyone HERE likes simple (lazy) themes", exactly. "Barely anyone" and not no one and "here" and not in the game. Here are the mappers and coders, not average players. I just wanted to correct the statement that EVERY player cares about the looks of a map, because, well, it is not correct.

Oh, and I'm not going to make my own map or play alone, I'm going to texreduce your map and play with you, and you won't even know :P

Oh, and I'm not going to make my own map or play alone, I'm going to texreduce your map and play with you, and you won't even know

And nobody will care.

Either way, this parody has gone on long enough so let's just drop it.

I dont want to offend anyone that builds these maps but you should understand that like with everything, people have different tastes and preferences. Some people use their hair like a rock singer, others use their hair like a business man. So there should be NO rules in making maps at all. It is because of those rules that most maps in sauer look so much identical and sometimes even boring. It is supposed to be fun and attend to all different tastes and styles and not only maps that are aesthetically pleasing to a minority that made rules to build maps. It is a free and open source game and it should be in that spirit.

I want to play..
- totally underwater map, will someone make it?

- a map that is full of jumppads that you cant even run, only jump.

- a map 10 times bigger than Xenon that would give a team only a chance to score.

- a 2D map, that you can only jump up and down, move foward or back. Clipped on the sides and spawn room far away that it looks 2D.

- a map with a big cube in the middle and only that.

I want to play those maps with other people thinking about killing and scoring for fun.

johnkills

- totally underwater map, will someone make it?
i think that would slow the game down too much and it would be all about finding a nice hiding place and snipe all the others

- a map that is full of jumppads that you cant even run, only jump.
i think you would fall down too often and that would be very annoying, i dont mind about trickjumps with jumppads but i think there should always be a "save" way so newbies feel comfortable too

- a map 10 times bigger than Xenon that would give a team only a chance to score.
you rarely find a server with more than 10 players on xenon and if you would find enough players it would be almost impossible to score

- a 2D map, that you can only jump up and down, move foward or back. Clipped on the sides and spawn room far away that it looks 2D.
i dont think a map like that would be good in any fps and it wouldnt be tactical at all because you cant really escape, if your opponent got a rpg or a shotgun youre dead.. if you manage to pick up a rifle you could just camp in front of the enemys spawn room since there is only one way

- a map with a big cube in the middle and only that.
door_demo or ladder.

ps: sry for my english ^

I don't think this were actual suggestions, I think he wants to express that he is free to have an own opinion about how a map should be.

no, these were actual suggestions for maps. I would play in those maps.

To Johnkills
I actually don't want to spend more on this, but one last try...

What's inside the official release of Sauerbraten is eihrul's choice. Now guess the reason of why several maps are pretty identical in gameplay and flow (which I disagree actually).

That's it, now take 1 day to think about that reason and what consequences it actually has.

If you have certain ideas about maps, don't be surprised to get (negative) feedback from other people. They often aren't giving such feedback just for nothing (else they would have ignored your ideas), so most of the time there is some sense in the feedback.

To SkiingPenguins
That wasn't my intention at all. Poor quality nodes shouldn't get such enormous amount of attention while way better maps get almost nothing compared to this. That was my intention, nothing more. Don't denigrate me just for your own pleasures.

Cubetown was a very late april fool's joke. That map is horrible on so many aspects.

I like the maps in quadropolis sure, the details and everything. Nice work but the details you spend so much doing, goes unnoticed to me while playing.

Take a server with everybody playing, then change the map to an unfinished map.
Do you think anyone will say... "wait wait guys, look at the ceiling, we cant shoot each other with a badly constructed ceiling like that"
No, people would just shoot and shoot.

Be honest, if my map had required a year of hard work and that showing in all objects, like complex shape mushrooms, small details in all objects and everywhere you would look, it would show really small cubes that took hours of hard work making it. Although the map would be the same in size and object orientation. You would not say anything about gameplay and flow, would you? You would think it was a great map. Is this correct?

I'd say then the map has a good gameplay, but I would not play it because I think that visuals are also important. If you think that everything that matters is the gameplay, then why you don't play just Doom or something similar? :)

Not at all, I am a real MAPPER and PLAYER, which means I have experience in BOTH fields. The last map I made has a good area to move in, but the flow really isn't super great if we are talking combat. However the map is really detailed (look for rcastle, you'll find my map)

and no, people don't have to stop shooting others because there is a poorly constructed roof, unless it gets in the way of gameplay. You have to understand what I am saying. I will attempt to explain it in smaller words, I really want you to grasp this.

flow/gameplay: most important, you need to be able to move around in the map without being shot, you need objects that you can also run behind to save yourself from being shot, this allows for more challenging and fun competitive games. the flow of the map is important because it make you have some room to move about, but not too much, too much will leave you easy to be shot, to little ill make it near impossible to not be shot.

detail: detail isn't as important as the flow, but it is still worth doing. Many mappers and players WILL notice the detail, even if it is a year after the map has been released, it also helps it making it feel more realistic, so you have fun, instead of feeling like you are on a very slow static map.

I hope that clears it up.

yup. which is getting tiring really, nobody's changing anyone's opinion, so i might as well end it here for everyone's sake.