Experienced and Creative Mapper wanted - Payment in real $$$

[TheRealMaxey]

Greetings,

As you can see from my join date and number of posts (this being #1), I'm very new to the TF2 mapping world.

Here's a bit of background for my request:

I currently own and run one of the largest TF2 Idle server communities (http://www.critmag.net). At any given time, we have between 200 and 300 simultaneous players. Some of these players are truly idle, but I'm finding more and more players are active on my servers. This leads me to believe that there is a definite subset of players who want to play TF2 and just chill. They don't want competition-level servers, but the don't want to just idle and be afk either.

I am currently running two maps across all my servers, the original one being the creation of a former friend on Steam. My desire would be to have a completely custom map running on all of our servers and to not use his property if I can help it. The other map we're running was customized by a fairly new mapper to TF2, and while it is conceptually and artistically good, there are a lot of exploitable areas which affect gameplay.

What I would like to do is determine if there is any interest in working with me to create or customize a map that is really unique in gameplay, while still allowing the idle crowd to come and have their player afk.

If you are interested, I am NOT going to ask you to do any work for free. I am a consultant myself and one of the most important things you can do is never undervalue your own work. That being said, I do expect to see examples of your previous maps, and I will also answer any additional questions you may have if posted here. As far as compensation, once I choose some finalists (assuming that there are any responses to this message at all), I will discuss the exact details with those individuals in private.

If you want to jump on one of my servers to get a feel for how our maps are played, head over to http://www.critmag.net/servers.php and join one of the ones listed there.

Thanks for your time, and I look forward to any responses I may get.

--Maxey

 

[Tarry H Sruman]

I've got time on my hands, I may take a swing at it.

 

[fubarFX]

hey why not, hit me up with more details on the features you want and I might give it a shot

 

[Tom Hoen]

Finally someone posted idlemap request I read through. Well written and interesting!

I'm not interested as I don't have the time just wanted to say that up there ^

 

[Fruity Snacks]

I would have totally done this but I just got off another job doing something kind of similiar for someone else, and have my own project to complete.

But I'm glad to see people are willing to take these things on for others now.

 

[Trotim]

But I'm glad to see people are willing to take these things on for others now.

Well, I wouldn't have responded to this but if I have to say one thing it's that making idle maps for money seems to me like a tumor of the cancer that is TF2's recent focus on money over everything else. In less pretentious words - to be blunt the request is dumb enough but actually doing it and accepting money for an idle map to support an idle server I don't particularly respect.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Well, I wouldn't have responded to this but if I have to say one thing it's that making idle maps for money seems to me like a tumor of the cancer that is TF2's recent focus on money over everything else. In less pretentious words - to be blunt the request is dumb enough but actually doing it and accepting money for an idle map to support an idle server I don't particularly respect.

Good point.

But for cheap/poor college students, like myself, we have low morals. (Hey, I got a key and Trine 2 out of the job I just finished... and it was just tweeking a map)

 

[TheRealMaxey]

Well, I wouldn't have responded to this but if I have to say one thing it's that making idle maps for money seems to me like a tumor of the cancer that is TF2's recent focus on money over everything else. In less pretentious words - to be blunt the request is dumb enough but actually doing it and accepting money for an idle map to support an idle server I don't particularly respect.

Myself being a player from what I would call the "golden years" (prior to the Mann-Conomy update), I definitely understand the spirit of your comment. I think the commercialization of TF2 was the beginning of the end in some ways.

To that point, reality is reality and I think the evolution of TF2 has been brought to a point where the F2P crowd has irreversibly changed the feel of the game forever. In the process of that evolution, there are thousands of players that will never be playing the game "seriously".

My goal is to help create a space for the players who fit the F2P/casual demographic to come hang out, shoot each other, and to use the actual "idle/afk" players as target practice. Regardless of your feelings toward players who idle for items, my goal is not to cater to that behavior, but rather to enable casual players to come hang out in a non-threatening place to sharpen their skills and enjoy the social aspects of a game type that hasn't to this point been properly addressed by TF2 - The Deathmatch. So to put a finer point on it, players on my idle server compete for kills and nothing more. They couldn't care less about payloads, control points, or intelligence (pun intended).

To put some numbers behind my idea, I run 10 idle servers currently. On each server of 32 players, the average number of afk idlers ranges between 6 and 10. So on a given day, it's safe to say that over two thirds of my players are actually playing the game in the way they want, but just on an "idle" map.

Here's food for thought... What about a terminology change? What if we removed the "idle" moniker in favor of something that has less of a negative connotation? What if we called them "lounge" servers or "casual" servers? Would that make a difference to the perception you shared?

And finally, I am offering money in exchange for the skills and time of the map designer only. I am not asking for the endorsement or acceptance of my ideas from the mapping community. So regardless of what the map is used for, I leave it up to the map creator to make the call if they want to participate. If you don't like what I'm asking for, then I would still ask that you be respectful to the people who do respond.

Thanks,

--Maxey

 

[fubarFX]

Well, I wouldn't have responded to this but if I have to say one thing it's that making idle maps for money seems to me like a tumor of the cancer that is TF2's recent focus on money over everything else. In less pretentious words - to be blunt the request is dumb enough but actually doing it and accepting money for an idle map to support an idle server I don't particularly respect.

tbh it's not even about the money. This is just the sad state tf2 mapping is in. Serious maps don't get attention anymore. To me, knowing a map is going to have a playerbase is good enough reason to make said map. Idle maps have that reputation of being bad maps made by lesser mappers but no matter how bad the map is, it gets a played anyway. If there's going to be a playerbase for idle maps, I'm more than happy to provide the community with a decent idle map. If I (or anyone else) can raise the quality bar, everybody wins and there's nothing to be mad about.

 

[MangyCarface]

Check your mail on here

 

[Trotim]

Very reasonable responses, sorry for the knee-jerk reaction. Just seen too many kids demand super cool idle maps, and too many "mappers" making "super cool" idle maps.

A proper casual lounge is not a bad idea. If you actually try, and also incorporate some minigames, I'm sure it's pretty easy to make an outstanding idle map. Good luck!

 

[Pocket]

Myself being a player from what I would call the "golden years" (prior to the Mann-Conomy update), I definitely understand the spirit of your comment. I think the commercialization of TF2 was the beginning of the end in some ways.

To that point, reality is reality and I think the evolution of TF2 has been brought to a point where the F2P crowd has irreversibly changed the feel of the game forever. In the process of that evolution, there are thousands of players that will never be playing the game "seriously".

Heck, that's been going on ever since people started achievement farming, which was probably the original Gold Rush Update. There are a lot of things wrong with the game now that weren't a few years ago, but people wasting time on achievement/idle servers instead of playing the game proper isn't one of them.