ceomindset a1a
Set goals. Have a ten year plan. Invest. Wake up early. CEO mindset.
This description will be honest and frank, it will start with a useless rant that will change nothing, but it explains why I made the map the way I made it.
//RANT STARTS
Cruelty Squad was described by its creator as a product made almost entirely out of spite. It obviously critizises capitalism, online hustlers, all in a package that revolts and challenges expectations, itself critizising boring and standardized brandings, graphics and gaming visuals.
So making a Cruelty Squad tribute map without a purpose wouldn't be relevant. That is by itself a non-issue, as I have things to criticize. I could have criticized TF2 in general, but I wanted to be more than that.
Over the years I have witnessed TF2Maps.net turn into a rat race of trying to be featured into the game, it almost feels like love and care has been thrown away for bland, repetitive and predictive gamemodes, layouts and maps. It feels like people forgot why they are mapping in the first place.
Does it make sense to mix people who play professionnal sports as a career and people who play a sport once in a while to entertain themselfs ? I don't think it's unpopular to say that it makes no sense, so why do we do essentially the same thing for mapping ?
People like me who map as a hobby have seen their maps gatekept and critizised for learning the mapping process, trying to get grips with how to create, and only once I could make the map I could only dream of making years ago, I was only met with RTVs and disgust from people who only wish to make and playtest the maps that have a chance to get in the game, maybe for "bragging rights" or maybe to "feel something" playing the game.
I believe TF2Maps.net has outgrown itself, we need to seperatethose who's job it is to make maps with the more relaxed hobbyists, because I don't doubt many new mappers gave up after being showered with negative comments from people who are numb to any map given to them.
People have been okay with being compliant, prefering to make safe layouts and gamemodes over new novel ideas. TF2maps.net playtests have been 95% of my TF2 experience since 2019, but I believe I "get" what a map's intention is just by looking at it, simply because I have played so many varied maps. So when I see yet another boring koth map with no twist, no interesting idea, I, and many people sigh in boredom.
I sigh because I don't want this community to be creatively bankrupt, in what can be the more creative field out there.
Out of boredom, I made this joke map, a funny gag to laugh at, a "quick 2 week long throwaway project", however as I made it, I could reflect year of frustration in the map by breaking every convention I was "tought".
In this way, I want to challenge the expectations of mappers, to challenge the playtester's viewpoints, to remind them to not take concepts for granted. This side of the joke will be lost on normal players, but they might notice how the Cruelty Squad aesthetics compliment the weird geometry and weird layout.
Last, I want this to be a reminder to some people that no, a "joke map" isn't just a map made in 2 seconds, a joke map is a map made with a clear vision and goal to get a reaction. Almost like an art piece.
I just expect that in this community, the reaction will not be laughter, but repulsion. I predict that some TF2Maps.net playtesters will want to RTV before the first round even ends just because he doesn't want to "waste his time".
When I originally published this, I would have laughed at people who do that, but now rewritting this, I would be sad for them.
TL;DR : This map was made with a bit of spite, thought I mainly wanted to use Cruelty Squad's assets, and I will break the norms of TF2 map making any day of the week before making yet another boring KoTH map.
//RANT OVER
Texture and sound effect assets from Cruelty Squad, copyright Consumer Softproducts, by Ville Callio. Assets found after a few google searches. No clear permission was given to use any of the assets, and I don't care.
Assets imported (poorly) to source by ME, I PORTED THE TEXTURES, ALL OF THEM.
Special thanks to :
Edited quite a few things because the description will never be 100% attuned to what I think in the moment, especially considering my point was almost proven by not getting played in a test because of what it tries to do.
//RANT STARTS
Cruelty Squad was described by its creator as a product made almost entirely out of spite. It obviously critizises capitalism, online hustlers, all in a package that revolts and challenges expectations, itself critizising boring and standardized brandings, graphics and gaming visuals.
So making a Cruelty Squad tribute map without a purpose wouldn't be relevant. That is by itself a non-issue, as I have things to criticize. I could have criticized TF2 in general, but I wanted to be more than that.
Over the years I have witnessed TF2Maps.net turn into a rat race of trying to be featured into the game, it almost feels like love and care has been thrown away for bland, repetitive and predictive gamemodes, layouts and maps. It feels like people forgot why they are mapping in the first place.
Does it make sense to mix people who play professionnal sports as a career and people who play a sport once in a while to entertain themselfs ? I don't think it's unpopular to say that it makes no sense, so why do we do essentially the same thing for mapping ?
People like me who map as a hobby have seen their maps gatekept and critizised for learning the mapping process, trying to get grips with how to create, and only once I could make the map I could only dream of making years ago, I was only met with RTVs and disgust from people who only wish to make and playtest the maps that have a chance to get in the game, maybe for "bragging rights" or maybe to "feel something" playing the game.
I believe TF2Maps.net has outgrown itself, we need to seperatethose who's job it is to make maps with the more relaxed hobbyists, because I don't doubt many new mappers gave up after being showered with negative comments from people who are numb to any map given to them.
People have been okay with being compliant, prefering to make safe layouts and gamemodes over new novel ideas. TF2maps.net playtests have been 95% of my TF2 experience since 2019, but I believe I "get" what a map's intention is just by looking at it, simply because I have played so many varied maps. So when I see yet another boring koth map with no twist, no interesting idea, I, and many people sigh in boredom.
I sigh because I don't want this community to be creatively bankrupt, in what can be the more creative field out there.
Out of boredom, I made this joke map, a funny gag to laugh at, a "quick 2 week long throwaway project", however as I made it, I could reflect year of frustration in the map by breaking every convention I was "tought".
In this way, I want to challenge the expectations of mappers, to challenge the playtester's viewpoints, to remind them to not take concepts for granted. This side of the joke will be lost on normal players, but they might notice how the Cruelty Squad aesthetics compliment the weird geometry and weird layout.
Last, I want this to be a reminder to some people that no, a "joke map" isn't just a map made in 2 seconds, a joke map is a map made with a clear vision and goal to get a reaction. Almost like an art piece.
I just expect that in this community, the reaction will not be laughter, but repulsion. I predict that some TF2Maps.net playtesters will want to RTV before the first round even ends just because he doesn't want to "waste his time".
When I originally published this, I would have laughed at people who do that, but now rewritting this, I would be sad for them.
TL;DR : This map was made with a bit of spite, thought I mainly wanted to use Cruelty Squad's assets, and I will break the norms of TF2 map making any day of the week before making yet another boring KoTH map.
//RANT OVER
Texture and sound effect assets from Cruelty Squad, copyright Consumer Softproducts, by Ville Callio. Assets found after a few google searches. No clear permission was given to use any of the assets, and I don't care.
Assets imported (poorly) to source by ME, I PORTED THE TEXTURES, ALL OF THEM.
Special thanks to :
- Cruelty Squad for existing
- My friend whom I will not name but had very pertinent input during the creation process
- People who saw my vision in some of my previous maps and gave actually good feedback
- Whoever made that cubemap creator website I used for the skybox.
- people on the discord willing to help me with vscripting the stuff
Edited quite a few things because the description will never be 100% attuned to what I think in the moment, especially considering my point was almost proven by not getting played in a test because of what it tries to do.
