The Future of Compensation for TF2 Mappers: A Community / Valve Discussion

[Fruity Snacks]

They could have another contest with us. I'll be more than happy to organize something with them.

 

[Grizzly Berry]

I think maybe more official Valve mapping contests could help. I'm not sure how that would generate revenue (besides Valve paying out of pocket), but it could really help grow the mapping community.

Edit: Frozennnnnn.

 

[fubarFX]

well, mappers never mapped for money and I hope they never will.
if valve are not getting maps because they feel they haven't figured it out yet, well I'd say that's counter productive.

I'm not even sure there's an issue with how things are to begin with or at least that's how I feel, so what's the hold up?


Idea: (it's not great but w/e) pyrovision and romevision both introduced a way for players to experience the same maps in different ways. there might be a way to monetized those customized experiences. However this means more work with each release and I'm not sure how viable that would be

 

[MrHatlf]

One suggestion that has been suggested to Valve is that every normal crate that drops on a custom map gets tagged with thats map name.

Whenever a key is used to open that crate, a % of the money used to buy that key is given to the mapper. More popular maps would have more crates that are dropped on them, across the population who plays them, so, more money to the mappers.

I like this idea, where as Valve could add something to the crates in maps that don't get played as often, promoting popularity with that map. With the maps that get played a lot the crates begin to have low tier items locked inside such as stranges and unusuals. And the cycle would continue making it a win win for both the players and mappers, the players get what they want from the crates and the mappers would get compensation from the player buying the keys to open the box.

 

[Idolon]

@Idolon

I think dividing maps off in any way from any of the player base is a terrible idea, especially as one of the primary goals is to INCREASE the revenue towards the mapper. Less people playing it is less sources of revenue.

I think the best idea is to do it in a more round-about way in addition to the ways that are already around. Keep stamps, keep filters, add keys or something. The average player doesn't care who made what they are playing on so they aren't going to want to go out of their way to reward them.

Definitely a reasonable concern. I'd be curious to see how some sort of gating system would work though, because it could very well go both ways - either people want to play the new maps and so they pay money, or people just go on playing the existing maps and ignore the new ones because they don't want to bother.

If I had to guess, I would figure that Mann Up mode has shown us that the former is more likely. I could understand why it would turn out the other way though, and we would want to proceed with caution.

I guess the most important thing is just that we introduce more maps more often. Once the workshop comes out, there could even be some sort of Valve-promoted testing, where maps in late development that show promise can get selected for inclusion in official matchmaking and Valve servers. That could also backfire, but it's worth consideration.

One last point: Being less exclusive about what maps get into the game means that mappers can worry less about making sure their map gets them money. More maps is definitely the end goal.

 

[Fruity Snacks]

Honestly, right now, i would rather chat with valve about getting more of them into our feedback loop than anythingelse.

More mapping contests, official test servers, even the ability to have servera that run custom maps onto quick plasy, or something lke quickplay would be far better in the long run, than monetization.

On tablet, can't type.

 

[ScorpioUprising]

Just a quick note for anyone interested.

I think you guys might be slightly underestimating the payout that you get when a map goes official. When Valve bought Standin and Process, I was expecting two thousand per map (going off what I heard mangy mention when they bought Yukon). It was actually seven thousand per map, a sweet fourteen right away. At the time I was super worried about having to find another job to make ends meet, and that pretty much resolved it immediately, and I could spend the next six months working on TF2 maps.

Also, stamps are actually a real thing. You might think they are just a small donation, pocket change. But actually, I made a pretty substantial sum off them immediately. When I got my first month's payment it was three thousand. The next month was two thousand, and then one thousand five hundred, back up to to two for the two city's update, and so forth. Now its down to about four hundred a month, but even so over time it was a pretty substantial amount that I've been able to live off for quite some time (not so much now, I'm having to look for work quite quickly).

So, as far as compensation goes, I don't think its so much of an issue really. Yes, you aren't being paid as much as item makers, whose work is sought after by very interested parties for a variety of reasons, but it is certainly quite a bit more than you might imagine. Now, whether or not that is equitable in terms of amount of time one spends on a map versus an item, probably not. But given Valve's strategy regarding user generated content at the time, I think its more than enough as currently stands, and unless someone comes up with an amazing way of syncing the store and community maps (something to rival the item system) its the best we can expect.

As far as what I would like to see, I think that the community map workshop is LONG OVERDUE. Getting that out ASAP is the single best thing Valve can do to improve visibility of interesting mapping projects, generating hype and buzz about what needs to be put in game and who needs to be rewarded.

Also, though I've stated differently in the past, I do think that improved communication on Valve's part about what they like, why they like it, and what they expect from people trying to get maps into the game is essential. I know that when my maps were bought I made some pretty haughty comments about "well, just do what works, I dunno" but I've come around to the idea that stronger communication, notably about what kinds of maps they are looking for at a given time would go a long way to getting Valve what they need map wise. Obviously, you don't want something super strict (MUST MAKE A 3 CP ATTACK DEFEND IN A DESERT!) and you defintely want to leave room for interesting things to happen organically, but a set of guidelines would be welcome IMO.

 

[Micnax]

Honestly, right now, i would rather chat with valve about getting more of them into our feedback loop than anythingelse.

More mapping contests, official test servers, even the ability to have servera that run custom maps onto quick plasy, or something lke quickplay would be far better in the long run, than monetization.

On tablet, can't type.

How about a 'Feedback' mode where good-rated beta/RC maps on the (upcoming) map workshop are thrown into a playlist on Valve servers, and when players play on them, they receive boosted drop rates? When the match ends they can be presented with a box that can give feedback to the author which can then be improved upon, updated, put back into a playlist etc.

Same could be done for final maps looking to be boosted onto Official status too, but with a simpler rating system. A mapper can upload a map, specify what audience it's for (pub, comp etc.) and then those playgroups can test it and give feedback on certain aspects.

Just my two cents.

 

[YM]

my second thought is that weapons and items generally arent bought to support their creators but to be of some use to the buyee
hence i think instead of map stamps some item that gives you double or triple drop rate and hat chance on a particular map for a week would work better
tho then youd have people playing the map not because they like it which sucks

OH MY GOD. Why doesn't TF2 have any kind of drop boosters yet. Holy hell how have I not even thought about this. Despite reading about the Dota battleboosters and things like it, never even occurred to me that this would be good for TF2.

Nothing in TF2's drops is pay-to-win so it wouldn't unbalance the game, just introduce some fluctuations into the economy initially.

So, couple ideas for how they could work:
1)
Usable item, bought from the store, works on any map Valve, community or unofficial. On use it grants the player increased drops for X amount of time. When they use it, the player does a taunt, gets an item straight away and has the residual effect last X amount of time. If it was used on a community map, they get a cut, if it was used on an unoficial map or a Valve map, Valve get everything.
Comes in a single player and an all-server version.

2)
Map specific boost items. Buy and activate it to get a second drop timer that's only active on a specific community map. The regular timer is every 40 minutes[?] ish, this one would be the same, and separate like the crates. So if you've still got regular drops left for that week and you're playing on the community map you'd get twice as frequent drops. Boost lasts 1 week from activation.

3)
Tied to the stamp hats - equip it (or maybe just own it?) for a boost to your weekly drop quota.
1 stamp = 1 extra drop per week
5 stamps = 2 extra
10 stamps = 3 extra
20 stamps = 4 extra
50 stamps = 5 extra per week
Eeach map tallys it's own extra drops, so if you're playing just Valve maps you get your standard 20 items per week then if you play on Community map X, you get two more drops because you've got 5 stamps for it. then if you play Community map Y you get another drop because you've got just 2 stamps for it. Community map Z though gets you no extra drops because you're a hard arse and have no stamps for it.

EDIT: I realise those are all horribly convloluted methods of doing increased drop rates, but shush, it's 2am.

 

[A Boojum Snark]

I like Frozen's idea of flagging crates and then giving out a portion from keys used to unlock them. It seems to avoid most of the problems, which are quite a few.

I believe any kind of locked out maps simply can't happen because of the nature of the game. Wouldn't it take a massive overhaul of the server system to PREVENT people from playing certain maps? What's to stop people from recompiling a map with a different name then running it on their server?

Maps obviously suffer from not being a "thing" people want, so I don't believe any kind of "active" (pay to get X) system like hats and weapons can be found. Even if it isn't the crate/key thing, it will need to be a "passive" system whereby people simply playing the maps causes compensation to come from a revenue stream for something else.
edit: YM's is another thing that would work this way.

 

[YM]

I like the idea of the crates being tagged. No special crates, just every crate is tagged when it's dropped. Dropped on a community map and opened -> 1c goes to mapper.

It's clean and simple. It's reeeaaallly fair because, unlike regular drops, crate drops can happen any time so they will be evenly distributed over actual map play time.

 

[EArkham]

On the workshop there's a service provider thing where you can split Valve's share of that item's revenue back to the community. My latest items all use tf2maps.net. Should definitely have been a non-trivial bit of income for the site from my items alone.

What if in addition to community providers, there was also an option in that selection to choose map creators?

Downside obviously is that it'd require a model maker to actually support his favourite map; upside is that it's community-based, and the community loves to work together, especially on themed releases.

A lot of the ideas so far are really nice, but I don't think there's a single solution that's going to solve everything. I think for maps having multiple methods would be ideal. Multiple passive revenue streams as opposed to a single big payout solution.

So for example, you have:

1) initial payout from Valve
2) map filters
3) map stamps
4) YM's tagged crate idea
5) map creators in service providers in the item workshop
6) map drop rate boosters

[Edit] Also, I don't think anyone's really saying the existing payouts are peanuts. But when you combine the amount of hours that goes into making a map (measured in months and months of testing) to making even a complex model (as little as a few hours, but certainly not more than a couple of days for an experienced modeler), the compensation is a little off.

 

[Newe6000]

I like the idea of the crates (as others said it's passive which is what we want for maps). My concern for that though is that TF2's very few items a week drop system plus the fact that not many people get keys for crates would mean the final payouts would be peanuts.

Honestly, I don't think there is a good way for the community to passively support map makers. Valve might just have to accept defeat and directly pay map makers based of how much their map gets played.

 

[Sergis]

really best thing valve can do is actually start buying maps more actively again

then parallelly figure out something better

especially since as scorpio is saying map money is no pocket change even in its current state

 

[wareya]

My favorite ideas are definitely selling map-specific drop boosters (though it would be REALLY hard to make it worth the money; it's just something nice to think about) and tagged crates (essentially a free place to unintrusively add an extremely fair system of monetization).

I think restricting access to maps whatsoever is a downright terrible idea. It's already annoying to me in CS:GO.

As long as nothing downright replaces the current routes of monetization I'm cool with it.

 

[puxorb]

The TF2 map workshop will get a lot of great custom maps noticed, and I feel as though that will lead to a lot more servers running custom maps. There is a lot of support for hats, weapons, custom SFM movies, hitsounds, custom HUDs, weapon re-skins, and taunts. But for some reason it seems as though most people do not care for custom maps. I know why, too. It's because most people do not know that these maps exist, or of the ones they do see they automatically assume that it will have the quality of your average orange map. The workshop is literally the best thing that could be done to get us noticed and I am sure that the community will gladly accept us.

Just look at the Portal 2 and CS:GO level workshops; they were an instant success and many people still continue to create levels for both games.

As for a 'compensation' or 'reward', I think there should be a custom item, or an exclusive shine on a weapon. Like a custom community-map sparkle that is applied to a weapon/misc that clearly defines that you have made a popular map.

EDIT: As for money, I'm not sure exactly what they could do, but some of the ideas above seem reasonable.

 

[Sergis]

i was also thinking there should definitely also be some help for nonofficialized customs, what with serverkilling quickplay and all

some custom map qp whitelist combined with whitelisted map servers as default qp setting or something

 

[Sel]

Make it so that people with more map stamps have like a 0.5% higher chance of uncrating an unusual if they have like, 100 from each map.

 

[HellJumper]

On the workshop there's a service provider thing where you can split Valve's share of that item's revenue back to the community.

You'd be very surprised with how few people use that feature. Nobody knows about it, and it's extremely frustrating for someone like me: After every single update, I receive a friend request from some random guy telling me, "Thanks for your tutorials! I would have never gotten anything in-game without them!" And when I ask them if they used the service provider feature, they ask me what that feature even is.

If anything, Valve should have made the feature more well-known.

And I think the crate idea is good, although I'm not sure Valve would really light up to that idea since keys are a significant portion of Valve's income from TF2.

 

[Prestige]

It would be really cool to see a valve-sponsored contest with a bunch of beta test servers for the maps and all. perhaps a kickoff for the RD mode that zpq says is good and cool?

also wow @scorp's stamps. I know process probably generated a lot because it's one of the best community maps, but that's a lot of money. I'm not sure if more than that is really justified but i'm a big sissyboy when it comes to deserving anything.