Steam workshop

[Woozlez]

This site is a community of mappers that provides learning resources for all aspects of hammer so people can gain entrance to the mapping community, and then provides valuable discussion and criticism from fellow mappers on submitted maps. The workshop doesn’t provide any of this for items that are submitted.

What I’m really hoping for is an announcement very similar to the Steam Workshop announcement here: http://www.teamfortress.com/workshop/

The greatest thing about this announcement is that it makes modelling seem approachable and gives many resources on how to begin modelling and submitting content to the workshop. I’d like the same to be done for mapping, in almost the exact same format.

Here’s what it might look like:

Q: What are the steps to making a map?
A: Here are broad steps involved in making a map for Team Fortress 2:

Q: How does the map publishing process work?
A: Like this:

1. You create a map that meets the submission requirements.
2. ???
3. Profit

Q: Where can I find good tutorials to learn Source SDK Mapping?
A: Search for “TF2 Mapping” on Youtube and visit the source developer wiki. There are also a lot of tf2 mapping communities online with great information. Here are a few that we like to visit.

http://tf2maps.net/
http://www.facepunch.com/
http://gamebanana.com/

Q: What are some guidelines for meeting TF2 map standards and improving the chances of my map getting in?
A:. (Would actually love to see the answers you guys have for this question!)

Etc...

 

[UKCS-Alias]

I personally don't know anything about the CSGO custom map community, but from what I heard from Blade and/or Psy the major CSGO map authors are mainly focused on getting the maps ingame which often leads to a very negative atmosphere. I'm not saying that making maps just to get paid is bad (although I don't personally like it, I feel like it'd take all the fun of mapping away) or that the integration of a CSGO-like map system to TF2 will cause our community to sour, however - I'd absolutely love to see a TF2 map workshop on Steam. I'm sure it'd behave similarly to the TF2 item workshop, meaning that both good and bad maps would get submitted, maybe even at a ratio of 1:10, but the good ones would stay near the top and the crappier ones would get shoved to the bottom pages.

CS:GO mappers often get advertised by sponsors and such. They even make paid contests for it which quite often are shown at gamebanana (where we currently have the first one that i can even remember).

Its a totaly diffirent atmosphere in mapping because of a reward system. And also, since CS:GO mapping is also easier in the entity work and map flow people are far more often capable of having a decent map. This means even more people pushing their map forward to not be forgotten in the list of less quality maps.

In TF2 we actualy have the luck that the flow of excelent maps is far less allowing less known mappers to show themselve much better. Where in csgo you might have a high quality map each few days while in tf2 you can be happy if you see 1 per week that is finished. Just because we have less mappers. And if they for example search for maps each month in tf2 that would mean about 4 maps, in csgo this could already be 12, which for many servers is just too much to add each time. Those maps simply cant all easily get into the votes at the same rate.

When i used to search for css maps in gamebanana the first thing i did was follow the list of mappers of which i know created good maps. In tf2 i instead just browse here and just look at the post/view count (note that they were for public servers which avoid dev maps - and having a 2nd page already was a good filter). More comments means that they often are further in development, or higher profile maps from better known authors which was what i needed and thins out alot of map options.

And now to think of it, why doesnt the map workshop here not have a filter that says they should be at least beta or release candidate? This would make the search for detailed maps easier.
However, the only thing missing then would be the option undetailed/partialy detailed beta or fully detailed beta. Since fully detailed beta's are also what they usualy look for.

We do have a showcase for high quality maps, but lesser quality shouldnt be ignored even if they are finished.

 

[hooky]

When the Map Workshop debuts (whenever that will be), Valve should add an easier way to open Hammer. Either some sort of in-game button or a separate tool for it (like Dota 2).