What constitutes a good idea for a CC map?

[natty dread]

I don't know. I guess it could be a way to illustrate to mapmakers what maps don't draw much interest?

Isn't that a bit counterproductive? You'd remove maps from play just to give mapmakers ideas on what kind of maps to not make? Meanwhile, it would deny the players who enjoy those maps the maps they want to play.

We already have a good system in place for giving mapmakers feedback on what kind of maps they should/shouldn't make. It's called the foundry.

[DiM]

Once again, who cares. As a good friend of mine says, "you're worried about the wrong thing." Let people make their maps. If it makes it all the way through to the Final Forge and is made a playable map more power to them. They might surprise you and make a map you enjoy in the future. Yall take this way to personally. Guess what? Some people make millions on art that other people this is crap and some artist make crap on art that is worth a million dollars. It is just how the world turns. Get over yourselves. The community can decide on their own, as natty pointed out, if the map is worth it. Go ahead make all the meat maps you want, human body maps, etc that you want. If the graphics are good and the gameplay is balance then let it through. Some people even bitch about seeing another Europe map. Boo hoo

you typed conquerclub.com in the address bar not landgrab.com

[OldeHangover88]

Maps are made for enjoyment. Right? If people enjoy them then why not make them?

[DiM]

Maps are made for enjoyment. Right? If people enjoy them then why not make them?

just because some people enjoy eating crap that does not mean that all 5-star restaurants should start serving platters of hot steaming shit.

those that prefer their crap can go to places that serve it.


in our case if you want any crap map you go to landgrab.com. at that place if you know how to open mspaint you're already a mapmaker and anything gets uploaded.

[Nola_Lifer]

Once again, who cares. As a good friend of mine says, "you're worried about the wrong thing." Let people make their maps. If it makes it all the way through to the Final Forge and is made a playable map more power to them. They might surprise you and make a map you enjoy in the future. Yall take this way to personally. Guess what? Some people make millions on art that other people this is crap and some artist make crap on art that is worth a million dollars. It is just how the world turns. Get over yourselves. The community can decide on their own, as natty pointed out, if the map is worth it. Go ahead make all the meat maps you want, human body maps, etc that you want. If the graphics are good and the gameplay is balance then let it through. Some people even bitch about seeing another Europe map. Boo hoo

you typed conquerclub.com in the address bar not landgrab.com

Must of been that holiday green stuff I've been smoking.

[ironsij0287]

Maps are made for enjoyment. Right? If people enjoy them then why not make them?

just because some people enjoy eating crap that does not mean that all 5-star restaurants should start serving platters of hot steaming shit.

those that prefer their crap can go to places that serve it.


in our case if you want any crap map you go to landgrab.com. at that place if you know how to open mspaint you're already a mapmaker and anything gets uploaded.

LOL!

[Victor Sullivan]

Here is the post I wrote. Can someone point out to me where in this post I am dictating to people how they should conduct their work, or doing anything other than expressing my opinion and presenting some ideas about the foundry and it's purpose?

I'd like to avoid further conflicts and learn from my mistakes, so can someone please tell me what I was doing wrong here, what part of my post caused nobodies to think I'm dictating orders to him, or what gave the impression that I think my opinions are infallible?

I think there's a fine balance between "being a dictator" and "upholding the standards", which the CA:s need to be careful with.

On one hand, the CA:s shouldn't be afraid to tell a mapmaker when the quality of the map is not sufficient.

On the other hand, the CA:s shouldn't let their personal opinions affect their judgement too much, and if there's generally lots of support for a map, then the CA:s shouldn't be holding it back purely because it's not to their personal tastes.

It's a fine line to walk on sometimes, and there's no easy answers. But one thing we should all consider is, why are we making maps? Is it for the enjoyment of the public, or is it for some other purpose? I think, the primary purpose of any map is to be fun to play, after all that's what people come to this site for: to have fun playing games on maps. If the public wants to have a few "silly" maps, if they find them fun, then should we deny it from them because some us feel they go against some arbitrary artistic standards we have set for ourselves?

I mean, here's the problem with Dim's argument: who gets to decide what is "a stupid idea", who gets to define what a CC map should be? What some see as stupid, others see as brilliant. I think there are several stupid maps already on CC - Crossword, for one. If we can have a map of a crossword puzzle, why not a cow? Where does the line go, and who gets to decide where it's drawn?

Then there's the slippery slope argument, that if we allow this map, then doom & apocalypse will come, cats and dogs living together, etc... I don't buy that either. Like I said, there have been stupid maps made on CC before, like Crossword. However, the opinion that Crossword is a stupid map is a personal one - some people like it a lot, it's not one of the most popular maps, but it does have a niche following. Crossword was made years ago, and yet CC wasn't flooded with nothing but stupid puzzle maps afterwards.


So anyway... long story short: yes, standards should be upheld, but we should also keep in mind the purpose why we make these maps. I think, sometimes we lose ourselves so deep to the art of mapmaking, that we forget why it is we make them. That is, to give people something fun to play on.

I'll tell you what you're doing wrong: You are a disgrace. There should not be a colon in "CAs". That's just ridiculous.

-Fascist Sully

[Nola_Lifer]

Maps are made for enjoyment. Right? If people enjoy them then why not make them?

just because some people enjoy eating crap that does not mean that all 5-star restaurants should start serving platters of hot steaming shit.

those that prefer their crap can go to places that serve it.


in our case if you want any crap map you go to landgrab.com. at that place if you know how to open mspaint you're already a mapmaker and anything gets uploaded.

So to get back on topic here. A good map needs 1. theme, 2. graphics , 3. game play. Is there anything else that it needs. A good following? Does it need all three to be considered a good map. Can you argue that it has good graphics and game play but the theme isn't up to standard but still a good map?

[thenobodies80]

I'm of the opinion that the theme/idea is the most important thing. If you have a failure idea there's no point in try to make it something. Not only on CC, it applies on everything in life. When you have a nice/good idea, you have to find a way to make it a CC map, so find a good gameplay and try to balance it. Once you have both these things done you can develop nice graphics that is up to the standards and that fits the theme you have picked.

Exactly the way/order we have with the foundry system.

[natty dread]

Ok, I want to clarify a few things I've said in this thread.

Of course, the CA:s and the Foreman have to monitor the standards of the maps in the foundry. They have a thankless job, everyone always complains when they have to make hard decisions. So if the CA:s/Foreman are of the opinion that some map isn't suitable for CC, or doesn't fulfill the foundry standards, then they absolutely do have the right to stop that map from being developed.

All I'm saying is, that the CA:s and Foreman should try to use good judgement, and watch out that they don't misuse this power. Blocking a map should only be used in extreme cases. I don't mean that the CA:s and Foreman should not have the power to do it at their discretion, they absolutely should, that's what they're in their jobs for. However, what I'm saying is, they should be careful not to take it too far, to a level where mapmakers and foundry commentators start to get the feeling that their opinions don't matter, that their feedback is irrelevant. That's all I'm saying.

I mean, it's also up to the foundry regulars to uphold the standards, and ideally I think the CA:s and Foreman should work together with the foundry community towards making the best decisions, and the best maps, for the foundry. The ultimate authority should of course always be within the CA:s and, ultimately, the Foreman. They should have the right to pull the plug on a map if they so choose, even if people complain about the decision. I mean, ideally, I think the CA:s and Foreman should interact with the community, and try to guide the process so that they - most of the time - don't have to resort to decisions like that. But when the situation calls for it, then they should absolutely do it.

These are all my opinions and how I feel the foundry process should ideally work. They may not reflect the views of the CA:s or Foreman or how the process actually works.

[DiM]

So to get back on topic here. A good map needs 1. theme, 2. graphics , 3. game play. Is there anything else that it needs. A good following? Does it need all three to be considered a good map. Can you argue that it has good graphics and game play but the theme isn't up to standard but still a good map?

a good map needs a theme, gameplay, graphics. in this precise order.
no matter how fancy the graphic is, people won't like it if the gameplay is poor or the theme is crap.

when i first came to the foundry in 2007 aside from a complete lack of gfx skills i also had the generic map ideas everybody has when they first arrive here. a human body, brain, rubik's cube. first thing i realised was that ms paint just won't be enough so i started learning gimp. didn't like it so i learnt fireworks 8. so i started a map where a parchment was torn and layed on a desk. the pieces of paper were the terits. despite the graphics heading in the right direction and the gameplay being easy to get up to par, people (including the foreman and his CAs) stopped me in my tracks because the theme was too generic. too random and not very interesting. tried making it about the bill of rights and how the goal would be to bring together the pieces of the torn bill of rights. still wasn't enough. the map was binned. oh, did i mention the map had community support? in fact it had the kind of support you rarely see nowadays. just search the old topic and look at the poll. 97 people voted for that map to be continued. 97 people actually liked that map. now you barely get 97 people to vote in a foundry contest
it was pretty hard to accept it at first as that was the project i had invested the most time in.

back then theme was very important and now that we have a lot more maps i think theme should be more important than ever. we already have dozens of great maps we don't need to let through the foundry just any map. only top notch ones should.

[natty dread]

Ok guys, come to think of it, I've come to the opinion that the cow map probably shouldn't be let through the foundry.

So yeah, I was wrong before. Now I've changed my mind.

when i first came to the foundry in 2007 aside from a complete lack of gfx skills i also had the generic map ideas everybody has when they first arrive here. a human body, brain, rubik's cube.

That's so true!

Those same ideas have probably been presented dozens of times each.

My first map project was Proteins 101, a map of a piece of protein chain with 5 or 6 amino acids, with each amino acid a bonus area and each atom a territory... It had decent support, lots of people liked it - some still remember to this day - but ultimately, it ended up in the bin. And I've never looked back since. The next map I started was Nordic Countries, and that one I finished. The first drafts were horrible though...

[DiM]

I was wrong

quote of the year

[natty dread]

I was wrong

quote of the year

Maybe you can save it and use it whenever you forget how it is spelled

[OldeHangover88]

in our case if you want any crap map you go to landgrab.com. at that place if you know how to open mspaint you're already a mapmaker and anything gets uploaded.

Sorry I don't know how to upload or open Mspaint. Also I tried going to "landgrab.com" or "landgrab.com." [?] and it gave me these errors:

(for landgrab.com)
"This premium domain name may be listed for sale. Click here to inquire."

(for landgrab.com.)
"Bad Request - Invalid Hostname
--------------------------------------------
HTTP Error 400. The request hostname is invalid."

[DiM]

learn to use google smartass

[Victor Sullivan]

It's landgrab.net.

-Sully

[gimil]

It is all very well to have the opinion that we should let everyone make every map they want. But that simply isn't the model the foundry has been designed around. I (and pretty much ever CA past and present) didn't put time, effort and commitment into this place to let it produce anything. My vision of my role is to help people make the very best maps they can. That is why the CA's are here. The current team easily has in excess of a decades worth of map making/CA'ing experience. We are not dictators but trust me when I say that I know what a bad idea is more than most. The cow map is a bad idea...that is simply a fact. I have seen it and its bad idea brethren rise and fall 100's of times in the foundry.

What constitutes as a good map idea isn't a black and white process. We can't set out in stone what is a good idea and what is not. But some of in the foundry simply have the experience and intuition to make a good judgment call on these issues. The experienced people (not just CAs) are simply better equipped to identify good idea. That is not to see we get it right ever time...but I think we do more times than not.