43 replies to this topic

[Cybermech]

For it to be successful it would have to be restricted in so many ways.
In RTS is quite easy to make maps even ones that function.
FPS however is different.
To get enough decent maps out of it to make it worth a while there would need to be a whole process that doesn't involve the devs.
Voting and liking is a good concept but still it can be promoted by friends and cop mates.

So how would you have a system that doesn't add more work to the devs (exclude the tools) ?
Restricted enough so valid material can be produced ?
But fluid enough for players to easily get involved in?

[Novaspawn]

Burakumin1979, on 14 May 2013 - 09:08 PM, said:

Maps should not ever be "balanced" as that happens nowhere in combat...anywhere...ever. There will always be tactical advantages to one side or the other.

I agree with this, however. I'm speculating PGI is going to be trying to get MWO into the E-Sport scene which would result in the need for balanced gameplay (atleast as much as possible).

[Zanathan]

Night Rider, on 27 May 2013 - 03:01 AM, said:

Quote or i call ********... there is no way they spend 200k on a single map.

Anyway if they are small company as many people say, making a map maker tool for community would only work to their benefit. I dont think it would be all that hard to make a simple ingame map editor.

Such editor could exist in an already implemented testing ground. There would be no need for 3rd party program, and all you could get out of the game would be in a single map file that could be sent to them.

So unless someone's ego might get hurt by seeing community delivering quality maps to them for free, there is really no reason not to add it.

Someone already provided a link and here some more:

Thread for the Reddit conversation with Bryan: http://mwomercs.com/...2013-730pm-est/

Entire Reddit Q&A: http://www.reddit.co...ve_director_of/

There is another Reddit Q&A prior to this one which they commented on it costing 250K to produce a map and this particulr Q&A had a response on why it cost that much:



Q: Why does it take several months and cost $250,000 to make a single map in MWO when fan mappers have created comparable work in one day? How does PGI intend to streamline this gross expenditure?
Poptarting was a major concern going into MWO, with fans quickly pointing to the state of MW4's multiplayer. Early in development PGI stated they were against the broken and tedious style of gameplay it encouraged, yet gameplay changes and balance tweaks have turned the meta-game into Poptarting. How did this happen when you set out to avoid it from the start? What are you doing to fix this?

A: No production quality map could ever be created in a day. It takes hours to playtest!

Reading in between the lines it's basically an overall cost including design, implementation, QA, etc.

So it's not a complete indicative cost of how much one map costs since they are grouping the cost of producing new textures, meshes, objects, etc.

And successive maps will become cheaper as they can re-use existing textures, objecst, etc.

[Syrkres]

Hammertrial, on 14 May 2013 - 11:35 AM, said:

Except PGI isn't the one handing out the licenses, FASA or Microsoft or whoever does.

Quality control is extremely difficult, you have to figure out the balance of both sides and search every nook and cranny of the maps for invisible walls or places where you can get stuck. PGI can spend a month testing the new maps (they say they are about 1 month ahead of us in terms of patches), and there are still bugged places they need players to test.

It'll be like Neverwinters foundry system. Sure you'll find a gem in the swaths of absolute crap, but is it really worth the effort?

But think about this.

If they release a map tool, then you have 10, 50, 100 or more people making maps.

Now some, if not a lot of these will not even get past a first pass, but what is harder QAing a MAP or designing it from scratch?

Plus, if they have someone just QAing it, then they can say, we selected these 5 maps(or even 1) (this round), now take them and fix them, the community can take those and work on them (the 100 or so people) and find the broken spots. then resubmit them. Minor effort from PGI.

There are a LOT of good map makers in the community (if you have ever played in any game that allows map making).

If you have 100, or even 1000 people working on a community map we would crank out maps much quicker. All we would need is a Source control to check in changes, which something like sourceForge or other would work fine.

This has been done with many other games (very successfully) for some time now, the fact that they are not allowing it seems a bit silly.

Yes

• There are legal issues (minor)
  
• There are possible compensation issue (unlikely - easily signed away)
  
• There are QA issues (biggest issue - but as with any map they will have these - in house or fan created)
  
  • From a balance point of view
    
    • We may not always want a Truly balanced map, A defensive map (defending strong hold) should have better defenses than normal map.
      
    • A convoy map will want better protection along the convoy route (as who would plan a vulnerable convoy along an easily attacked route).
  • from a quality point of view

Edited by Syrkres, 31 May 2013 - 06:50 AM.