TF2M Map pack

[RaVaGe]

The main problem is that we lacks of good mappers here, I mean, look at Acegikmo, Psy, YM, Mangy, Spud, DABP, Eerie, 3DNj, they are not here anymore, and we can easily feel that by looking at the overall quality of the maps here at tf2maps.

Creating a map pack, yeah ok, but don't be surprised if Valve isn't interested by it, so idk.

 

[LeSwordfish]

I think if we leave it too long, people won't use all the time. Are we really going to get better maps in a year than in six months?

I think if we try and force all new maps we leave ourselves far too open to things going wrong. That also throws back the timescale considerably, and I agree with fubar that we need this sooner rather than later.

I think one of the advantages of the "Holiday" theme is that we've already got lots of good maps that could fit the bill- pier is a good example, yeah. We don't need the massive retheming project that halloween was, because its not one specific "Theme."

If we line up a handful of already-created or late-in-development good maps then we can release earlier, since only a few maps need to be created and we're not waiting on the weakest link, and we can release BETTER, because the time to create a map from scratch can be spent polishing up already late-dev maps.

That also largely solves the problem with incentive, since most people who get to b7 or whatever already want to see their maps finished and successful.

 

[Crash]

As someone with a life outside of mapping, a wife, and a full time job, there is no way I could make a quality map from scratch to RC1 (or close) in 6 months without half-assing something. Stoneyridge took us 2 years (granted, we had some down-time) with a team of 3 people in a similar situation.

I mean, you're more than welcome to go with that plan, I'm just trying to be able to actually participate.

(edit: I think that maybe opening it up to recently worked on prior maps might not be a bad idea, I just don't think it's a good idea to limit it to JUST those with a short time-frame.)

 

[Sergis]

The main problem is that we lacks of good mappers here, I mean, look at Acegikmo, Psy, YM, Mangy, Spud, DABP, Eerie, 3DNj, they are not here anymore, and we can easily feel that by looking at the overall quality of the maps here at tf2maps.

Creating a map pack, yeah ok, but don't be surprised if Valve isn't interested by it, so idk.

yeah i guess making 57 maps is out of the question with the amount of quality mappers we have

 

[Ælement]

Maybe we can help each others across the different maps to compensate for not all being godlike at all fields of mapping?

 

[LeSwordfish]

This is part of the reason why we need older maps. Why apply a massive time and energy disadvantage to our work for the "all-new" identifier?

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Again, sure, you have a bunch of maps that already "Fit the bill" with a "holiday" theme. I'm not trying to talk people out of this, I'm just trying to make sure you all fully think this through before you jump in. Here's some more of my thoughts.

1) Look at the community as a whole. Not just TF2M, but the WHOLE community. What type of maps do they want right now? Where is the community interest going to be in a few months? A year? What type of maps do they want in a few months/year? Maybe ask TF2 Members on reddit, or on SPUF.

2) I said it before, I'll say it again. Taking pre-existing maps will make for an "Okay" update, not an "SO AWESOME FUCK YEA!" update. Sure, it'll be really damn awesome for US, but we shouldn't map for just US. The update is for the community, not us. If you're making the Update to be about us, then the update will stink.

"You cannot take a bunch of bricks, throw them together and call them a Castle"

This is where the latest update kind of fell apart. It's pretty sweet that there was 57 new items, but they were all robo'ed up originals. Nothing was truely "new" ... which is why the update got a huge range of responses from the community.


3) Do you think that the current TF2Maps community could make a ValvE or higher quality update? Is the depth of knowledge needed to make such maps still in the community? Going to be honest here, based on what I've seen and read, you're a few months off from that.

4) What will you need to do for this update? What is all that is involved?

• Brainstorm a couple of theme idea's
• Develop a contact with Valve, see if they actually want this. Or any of your ideas
• If you don't want to do it with Valve, ignore the last bit.
• You need to keep people on track and on a time table, how will you do this?
• How many maps?
• Who will make them? You can't take all the ones entered.
• If you want uniform high quality across the board, then you need to set a standard. If the map does not meet that standard it MUST be turned down. Are you willing to tell mappers that spend months working on a map that "Sorry, it's just not good enough?"

And that is just the maps. For the release:

• You need a website programmer that can do quality websites
• You need a artist that can do quality art. Actually, you'll need a couple.
• You need a manager who can run and maintain a quality project
• Do you need a trailer? Then you need an animator who can do high quality stuff. Years of experience needed.
• You need a writer that can mimic Valve's writing style for TF2.
• You'll need multiples and back ups for these people who can maintain consistency.
• You need a PR person to handle all the public relations and hyping

The reason Valve had these guys specifically (Heartsman, Mnemo, Smashman) in for the update was because they had done this many times before, and have shown in the past that they can organize themselves and make the highest quality community update that they can.

This is part of the reason why we need older maps. Why apply a massive time and energy disadvantage to our work for the "all-new" identifier?

If it's an older map, people are more likely to have played it, and thus already have made judgements on it. You'll lose people to update because it'll be like "Oh, I've seen this already" "Oh, this is meh." You lose the element of surprise wonder when you're teasing about it. "Oh, I've never seen this map before! I wonder what it could be!" instead of "Oh, I know that, it's that map by so and so."

tl;dr: Read the damn thing.

 

[Ælement]

I'm thinking that having to turn down maps because of lacking quality could be partly avoided by reviewing all submissions from time to time. If we say we want to use a whole year on it for example, we could review all submissions every two months or so to make sure they are on the right track, and warn those that are about to derail.

 

[Sergis]

Again, sure, you have a bunch of maps that already "Fit the bill" with a "holiday" theme. I'm not trying to talk people out of this, I'm just trying to make sure you all fully think this through before you jump in. Here's some more of my thoughts.

1) Look at the community as a whole. Not just TF2M, but the WHOLE community. What type of maps do they want right now? Where is the community interest going to be in a few months? A year? What type of maps do they want in a few months/year? Maybe ask TF2 Members on reddit, or on SPUF.

2) I said it before, I'll say it again. Taking pre-existing maps will make for an "Okay" update, not an "SO AWESOME FUCK YEA!" update. Sure, it'll be really damn awesome for US, but we should map for just US. The update is for the community, not us. If you're making the Update to be about us, then the update will stink.

"You cannot take a bunch of bricks, throw them together and call them a Castle"

This is where the latest update kind of fell apart. It's pretty sweet that there was 57 new items, but they were all robo'ed up originals. Nothing was truely "new" ... which is why the update got a huge range of responses from the community.


3) Do you think that the current TF2Maps community could make a ValvE or higher quality update? Is the depth of knowledge needed to make such maps still in the community? Going to be honest here, based on what I've seen and read, you're a few months off from that.

4) What will you need to do for this update? What is all that is involved?

• Brainstorm a couple of theme idea's
• Develop a contact with Valve, see if they actually want this. Or any of your ideas
• If you don't want to do it with Valve, ignore the last bit.
• You need to keep people on track and on a time table, how will you do this?
• How many maps?
• Who will make them? You can't take all the ones entered.
• If you want uniform high quality across the board, then you need to set a standard. If the map does not meet that standard it MUST be turned down. Are you willing to tell mappers that spend months working on a map that "Sorry, it's just not good enough?"

And that is just the maps. For the release:

• You need a website programmer that can do quality websites
• You need a artist that can do quality art. Actually, you'll need a couple.
• You need a manager who can run and maintain a quality project
• Do you need a trailer? Then you need an animator who can do high quality stuff. Years of experience needed.
• You need a writer that can mimic Valve's writing style for TF2.
• You'll need multiples and back ups for these people who can maintain consistency.
• You need a PR person to handle all the public relations and hyping

The reason Valve had these guys specifically (Heartsman, Mnemo, Smashman) in for the update was because they had done this many times before, and have shown in the past that they can organize themselves and make the highest quality community update that they can.


If it's an older map, people are more likely to have played it, and thus already have made judgements on it. You'll lose people to update because it'll be like "Oh, I've seen this already" "Oh, this is meh." You lose the element of surprise wonder when you're teasing about it. "Oh, I've never seen this map before! I wonder what it could be!" instead of "Oh, I know that, it's that map by so and so."

tl;dr: Read the damn thing.

*shouldn't

 

[RaVaGe]

And why not create our own artpass contest ?

We just takes our best level designers here at tf2maps to do the layout, create a poll to see who you want to to make the layout, 2-3 mappers could be good, test it a lot of times, and then ask Valve if they are interested by the map ? IMO it's the most easiest way to be recognized by Valve.

 

[Ælement]

Because we need new TC maps

 

[Fruity Snacks]

And why not create our own artpass contest ?

We just takes our best level designers here at tf2maps to do the layout, create a poll to see who you want to to make the layout, 2-3 mappers could be good, test it a lot of times, and then ask Valve if they are interested by the map ? IMO it's the most easiest way to be recognized by Valve.

I forgot to mention this too:

Getting recognized by Valve is great and all, but it isn't what you should be making a map pack for. Making a map pack to "get recognized by Valve" is like saying "I make maps because I want valve to buy them" ... we all know that is not the right attitude.

 

[LeSwordfish]

Again, sure, you have a bunch of maps that already "Fit the bill" with a "holiday" theme. I'm not trying to talk people out of this, I'm just trying to make sure you all fully think this through before you jump in. Here's some more of my thoughts.

1) Look at the community as a whole. Not just TF2M, but the WHOLE community. What type of maps do they want right now? Where is the community interest going to be in a few months? A year? What type of maps do they want in a few months/year? Maybe ask TF2 Members on reddit, or on SPUF.

Is this an argument for doing it sooner or later? I genuinely didn't know "Trends" in maps changed that much. Unless valve drops a new gamemode or theme on us...

2) I said it before, I'll say it again. Taking pre-existing maps will make for an "Okay" update, not an "SO AWESOME FUCK YEA!" update. Sure, it'll be really damn awesome for US, but we should map for just US. The update is for the community, not us. If you're making the Update to be about us, then the update will stink.

"You cannot take a bunch of bricks, throw them together and call them a Castle"

This is where the latest update kind of fell apart. It's pretty sweet that there was 57 new items, but they were all robo'ed up originals. Nothing was truely "new" ... which is why the update got a huge range of responses from the community.

Again, i kinda don't see what your argument is. I genuinely don't think that months of delay and all-new maps will be worth... what, exactly? Coherency? Cohesiveness? This is, as i've said, much closer to "awesome maps here is the cool shit we do" than "strict theming must look like this.

3) Do you think that the current TF2Maps community could make a ValvE or higher quality update? Is the depth of knowledge needed to make such maps still in the community? Going to be honest here, based on what I've seen and read, you're a few months off from that.

Firstly, cheers. And secondly, you think that as a group we're within a few months of valve-quality?

4) What will you need to do for this update? What is all that is involved?

• snip

And that is just the maps. For the release:

• snip

Firstly, I think you're overestimating how "professional" it need be. And this thread is step one, brainstorming, not "hey lol give us ten minutes"


The reason Valve had these guys specifically (Heartsman, Mnemo, Smashman) in for the update was because they had done this many times before, and have shown in the past that they can organize themselves and make the highest quality community update that they can.


If it's an older map, people are more likely to have played it, and thus already have made judgements on it. You'll lose people to update because it'll be like "Oh, I've seen this already" "Oh, this is meh." You lose the element of surprise wonder when you're teasing about it. "Oh, I've never seen this map before! I wonder what it could be!" instead of "Oh, I know that, it's that map by so and so."

Okay, so this is the best argument i've seen for new maps. Except like half the maps we have here never see the light of day in the open community.

Look at borneo, or JeanPaul's SD map, or Ankor or Volcanic or Isolation or Zink or any of those. How many people play them? Compared to how many would?

My comments in bold.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

EDIT: okay, read it all.

About the last comment:
pl_volcanic
pl_borneo
mvm_isolation
pl_moonlit
cp_zinkenite *Should be noted that with Zink, rexy probably couldn't take money from it because he's working for Raven, but I'm not sure about that*

Just some supporting evidence.

A lot of the maps do really get played a lot more than you would think. We're not some small corner of the internet that the TF2 community just ignores. People do come here and people look for maps. The high-polish "newer" maps have mostly come out of the highly-publicized contests, so they do get played and people do remember them. The other maps that don't come out of contests, but are still polished, usually come from another community (UGC, mainly). HoneyMustards and Irishtaxidriver's Gravel Pit style map is the only map that I can recall that was well polished, but didn't come from another community or contest.

EDIT/Addition: What I just said still applies. Making new maps gives people something to look forward to. If you have a pack with say... Borneo, Pier and Isolation... those people will have seen those maps and it'll just be a "Oh hey, these are official! Time to go do what I've already done!" Remember when koth_soho got teased and everyone was bugging the hell out because it was like 'OH MAN, NEW MAP, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS...* SPECULATION! *' and then there was the 1 demoman screenshot? Yea.

For good updates, you want speculation, you want people to start using their imagination and trying to figure out what a map or update is going to be like. You want people to start saying what they want, seeing if they are right. But, like I said earlier, if you are doing hype and it's just a leak of an image of a map thats already out, then meh, people will be like "oh, it's this map, see!" and then that'll be the end of that speculation. I've seen threads about the soho update that went on for pages because people were all talking about what it is. TF2 World Tour? New theme? Half life 3?

Perhaps I am over-estimating how "professional" it needs to be. But would you rather over-prepare or under-prepare and risk collapse? (Thats how I look at it. I always tried to be as professional -yet informal- as possible with the content releases and contests that I ran).

It's not waiting, you can start now; but what I'm saying is start from scratch. Do your research, look for what people want. Doing some reading around the web about the recent update, and readying some interviews about the update, I'm seeing that MvM maps are really the big thing atm, and that more "Roboized" things are what the direction over the next few months will be. Look at how Valve did the TF2 Map releases, mimic that style (completely hilarious and over the top). You'll probably want to spend a couple weeks just writing up ideas, a plan and a schedule before you start in on deciding how to map. You can't tell people "go map" without a solid AND CLEAR direction.

 

[LeSwordfish]

Professionalism as an attitude, i'm all over that, but I'm thinking much more like our halloween map packs than making our own tf2 update like the robot one.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Professionalism as an attitude, i'm all over that, but I'm thinking much more like our halloween map packs than making our own tf2 update like the robot one.

Perhaps bringing this back again with some minor changes might be good.

 

[goatcheese3]

Really bad idea that you should consider anyway:
We release two map packs, or two parts of the map pack. One has old maps, and the other has new maps! Problem solved (not really).

 

[JeanPaul]

I could do more stages for osiris if you need something egypt-y?

 

[fubarFX]

Remember when koth_soho got teased and everyone was bugging the hell out because it was like 'OH MAN, NEW MAP, WE DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS...* SPECULATION! *' and then there was the 1 demoman screenshot? Yea.

turns out, that promo map wasn't all that great and probably would have been better without the forced theme. just sayin

I don't think that secretly developing maps is ever a good idea and the amount of players who keep up with what we do is highly overestimated. so what if 5% of the player base has already seen some of the maps? (and I'm probably being generous here. hell I don't even know that 5% of the playerbase has played plr_nightfall)

 

[Sergis]

i for one would rather see a squeaky clean professional with standarts update with all brand new maps exceeding valve quality even if it takes a whole year to get done
as opposed to reskins of old maps that either are good enough to have taken off on their own already or bad enough to not have

as for the teasing thing, you'd need existing attention and tf2m isnt exactly on everyones mind and you'd need secrecy which if we do public tests goes to shit so its a tricky thing to do

also, valve quality. what is it exactly if we were to break it down? gameplay wise? design wise? gameplay is fuck if i know given the variety of it in the official maps ( though its useful to keep in mind that maps like lakeside, barnblitz, nucleus would likely not have survived tf2m testing ), design is, ignoring doomsday, largely just a finished map neatly detailed and coherently themed, maybe a bit overdetailed for tf2m tastes. nothing unreachable.

this also brings me to another idea kinda stated by prestige in the update thread that we should get some valve feedbacks going
ideally a quarterly event with a select few maps, looking strictly for feedback not buyership

I could do more stages for osiris if you need something egypt-y?

alter theme when you go beta to be more a tourist attraction for the holiday thing