88 replies to this topic

[LordKnightFandragon]

Imperius, on 28 May 2014 - 08:08 AM, said:

I don't see how you can spend 250k on a map... And it contains as many invisible walls and glitches as they the one we have.

HPG Manifold upper decks anyone?

That place is a great tactical spot to be, if only it were not for the inviso walls requiring the guy firing down to fully expose his mech...

I mean, being up there, lets you have free reign to fire on anyone advancing in any direction.....it gives a nice height advantage, though I question the advantage of height in this game...or any game as of late. Only seems to make it harder to fire down....

But otherwise, the high ground is a good thing to hold. Esp since it pretty much flanks everything.

[Prezimonto]

Bhael Fire, on 29 May 2014 - 01:24 PM, said:

See, I'm really torn on this one.

On one hand, I'd love to create maps for MWO. I'm a professional environment artist in the industry, so I'm confident I could work within their establish art style, palettes, etc. I also know there are other game professionals that play that would be able to provide quality content as well.

Then on the other hand, I know there's a lot of players that are just not up to snuff to create quality maps. Fan-made maps have a certain "stink" to them that is hard to ignore. I'd hate to see the beautiful work PGI has done get sullied with crappy fan-made maps.

If they could somehow provide players with a set of art-style guidelines and charge a non-refundable admission fee to submit a map, I think that might weed out the wheat from the chaff. I'd suggest the equivalent of $25 per submitted map. That would at least cover the expenses for somebody to look at the map and decide if it was a worthy submission to be adapted/further worked on or something that would be better relegated to the trash folder.

Now this is a seriously good idea. I wouldn't even mind if the cost went up and the community had to put together a collection to get a really good map looked at. Then again, there's no real way for us test the maps in the game, unlike every other game I've participated in helping play test maps. I know, from experience, that the best take serious play testing and revision to be polished.

[Magna Canus]

Nicholas Carlyle, on 28 May 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:

Niko and Bryan have already said no multiple times. They do not feel like we can create a solid product without going through 50 types of testing. Not to mention if it did work, they wasted the 250k per map they've been spending up till now.

Well, better to have wasted 250k per map you have made to date than 250k on any further maps created by the community. You are paying the guys doing the QA on maps their wages regularly anyways, and you get a ton of "free" workers/QA as well. The 250k they "wasted" on each map were really a waste, they could have saved money from the start with community created content.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Prezimonto, on 30 May 2014 - 04:57 AM, said:

Now this is a seriously good idea. I wouldn't even mind if the cost went up and the community had to put together a collection to get a really good map looked at. Then again, there's no real way for us test the maps in the game, unlike every other game I've participated in helping play test maps. I know, from experience, that the best take serious play testing and revision to be polished.

No way to test maps in game?

Umm..

Public
Test
Server

Make it open always and always running, kinda like PLanetside 2's PTS. Put maps there and let people play them....

[Dawnstealer]

This, right here, is the one area where I have a serious problem with PGI. Community-created maps and mods kept Half-Life alive for over a decade past when that game was obsolete. Community-created maps have been a thing since DOOM.

DOOM, people.

Now if the PGI team were whipping out maps that were mind-blowing and the best things I'd ever seen, I'd buy into the quality control argument. If there was a certain extreme level of expertise that the community just couldn't obtain, fine: I get that.

The maps for MWO are not great maps.

There, I said it. They're okay, they do what they need to, but they're nothing amazing or special. I don't land on a map and say "Yes! THIS is a battletech map." The maps don't really call for varied tactics: they're all mostly designed, on purpose, to funnel the two sides directly to one another with little chance for surprise.

Further, this lack of creativity could be forgiven if the volume was higher. If there were, for example, a hundred or so of these "okay maps," it wouldn't be a big deal: you'd only land on Terra Therma a tiny amount of the time you played. But with only 8-10 maps in the rotation, it's perfectly reasonable to expect to see the same map over, and over, and over, and...

Yes: PGI would have to dedicate someone to quality control. Yes: this would likely be someone involved in the map-making process now.

My question is this: what would this be taking them away from? There hasn't been a new map in almost half a year.

A final thought: CW has dropped and you are battling it out for a world. That world will be: Caustic Valley, River City (or RC Night!), Frozen City (or FC Night!), Forest Colony (or FC Snow!), Alpine, Terra Therma, Tourmaline or HPG. Eight "worlds," all of which you've probably played on hundreds of times before.

Making maps is a skill, and it takes a sharp eye and clever brain to make a really good one, but it's not THAT hard.

Edited by Dawnstealer, 30 May 2014 - 05:23 AM.

[Xavier]

Dawnstealer, on 30 May 2014 - 05:19 AM, said:

This, right here, is the one area where I have a serious problem with PGI. Community-created maps and mods kept Half-Life alive for over a decade past when that game was obsolete. Community-created maps have been a thing since DOOM.

DOOM, people.

Now if the PGI team were whipping out maps that were mind-blowing and the best things I'd ever seen, I'd buy into the quality control argument. If there was a certain extreme level of expertise that the community just couldn't obtain, fine: I get that.

The maps for MWO are not great maps.

There, I said it. They're okay, they do what they need to, but they're nothing amazing or special. I don't land on a map and say "Yes! THIS is a battletech map." The maps don't really call for varied tactics: they're all mostly designed, on purpose, to funnel the two sides directly to one another with little chance for surprise.

Further, this lack of creativity could be forgiven if the volume was higher. If there were, for example, a hundred or so of these "okay maps," it wouldn't be a big deal: you'd only land on Terra Therma a tiny amount of the time you played. But with only 8-10 maps in the rotation, it's perfectly reasonable to expect to see the same map over, and over, and over, and...

Yes: PGI would have to dedicate someone to quality control. Yes: this would likely be someone involved in the map-making process now.

My question is this: what would this be taking them away from? There hasn't been a new map in almost half a year.

A final thought: CW has dropped and you are battling it out for a world. That world will be: Caustic Valley, River City (or RC Night!), Frozen City (or FC Night!), Forest Colony (or FC Snow!), Alpine, Terra Therma, Tourmaline or HPG. Eight "worlds," all of which you've probably played on hundreds of times before.

Making maps is a skill, and it takes a sharp eye and clever brain to make a really good one, but it's not THAT hard.

Amen this is the exact sentiment I am trying to spark here, I am glad you said it the maps are OK not great and I agree that they don't feel like mechwarrior maps, movement is limited to usually 1 of maybe 3 possible strategies and therefore cause the maps to play very stagnant.

Please PGI give us a chance to surprise you with what this community can do!!!!

[Peter2k]

Sigh, well once more unto the breach

It'd be a great thing
The beauty of catering to players that are probably more older than younger (less CoD like play style I guess :-) ) is that some might have quite a proficiency at map making or modeling.

Have them come up with something, community votes on them, put the highest scored maps on test server and let it play out.

I'm sure this could've been done even while doing stuff for clans, not taking away too many resources. And implementing the first round of player maps in fall or so.

All in all, would be great, wish PGI would at least consider.

[Bhael Fire]

Prezimonto, on 30 May 2014 - 04:57 AM, said:

Then again, there's no real way for us test the maps in the game, unlike every other game I've participated in helping play test maps. I know, from experience, that the best take serious play testing and revision to be polished.

They could set it up so that map makers could preview the maps in the testing grounds as they are being created. It can be done already by modifying files locally...but yeah, they'd have to provide a simple tool that provides that functionality without mucking around in the system files.

When the map's to a state where it can be tested with other players, you could set up a private match and have each player testing use the provided tool to make the map available to them. Again, this can be done already by swapping out files locally on each players client, but it would be better if they provided a simple tool that didn't require altering existing game files in such a "hacky" way.

LordKnightFandragon, on 30 May 2014 - 05:11 AM, said:

No way to test maps in game?

Umm..

Public
Test
Server

Make it open always and always running, kinda like PLanetside 2's PTS. Put maps there and let people play them....

I think he was referring to testing it before testing it publicly. As you are designing a map, you have to constantly go into the game, run around and test it out...basically to just see if it looks and feels right.

Assuming it was to a point to where it was ready for public testing then that's when the map would be submitted to PGI for review. If they deemed the map worthy, they would accept the submission, make any necessary alterations then put it live on the public test server for all the players to test out.

PGI would then finish all the polishing and bug fixes for the map.

Edited by Bhael Fire, 30 May 2014 - 08:35 AM.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Id love to see maps twice the size....why they so tiny? I feel like I dove into Call of Duty, 4 story mech on a map the size of a single cul-de-sack in a neighborhood....

[Davers]

SLDF Xavier, on 30 May 2014 - 07:11 AM, said:

Amen this is the exact sentiment I am trying to spark here, I am glad you said it the maps are OK not great and I agree that they don't feel like mechwarrior maps, movement is limited to usually 1 of maybe 3 possible strategies and therefore cause the maps to play very stagnant.

Please PGI give us a chance to surprise you with what this community can do!!!!

The maps are small by design. Any player made maps will have to have similar size and have the "3 strategies" as well.

[Xavier]

Davers, on 30 May 2014 - 09:20 AM, said:

The maps are small by design. Any player made maps will have to have similar size and have the "3 strategies" as well.

i don't agree with your statement compare say alpine peaks to that of river city, those two maps are in no way of similar size alpine i would say is maybe the one map that could potentially have multiple strategies should the I9 hill be lowered slightly which i think everyone would argue should be done anyways.

I have played on maps where 5+ strategies are possible most of the maps we have really only have 1 strategy 2 maybe three of the maps have a secondary strategy

River City (capture citadel)
Frozen city (hold lower city crash site)
HPG (hold top, camp bottom)
Alpine Peaks (hold/rush I9 Hill)
Canyon (keep moving)
Tourmaline (Fight for wreckage)
caustic valley (circle the cauldera)
forrest colony (camp until your team gets a couple kills then rush)
terra therma (fight for middle control, side spawn rush)
crimson straight (hold high ground, brawl in tunnel)

These are the successful strategies that I personally have witnessed and continue to see over and over again which make the maps feel even more stale because not only do we have a limited number of maps (10 night and snow maps do not count as different maps) but in those maps we continue to see the same strategies used over and over again because the maps were not designed to be evolutionary in tactics. I remember some maps in mechwarrior 4 where every time you fought on the map a new strategy evolved, and even new strategies were invented on the fly.

This does not happen with the maps we currently have in rotation.

[Davers]

Do you think the map makers are incapable of making maps with 5+ strategies, or is it more likely they are created with the idea of '2 funnels and maybe a third route'?

90% of player suggested maps would be dismissed outright as being too large or not corralling the players enough.

This is a game where people track their Cbills per hour after all.

[Bullseye69]

This right here is a reason to allow fan made maps.

just google new roland map for living legends it on you tube.

Started to do a link but not sure if it was allowed so edit it out.


That game as everyone knows is base on crysis so a lot of maps for that game could be easy to convert so take money and try to buy the right are hired the guys to do maps like those.

Edited by Bullseye69, 30 May 2014 - 11:22 AM.

[Bhael Fire]

Bullseye69, on 30 May 2014 - 11:19 AM, said:

That game as everyone knows is base on crysis so a lot of maps for that game could be easy to convert so take money and try to buy the right are hired the guys to do maps like those.

Too much of that game used generic royalty-free art assets...which is not something that should go into a AAA title. That's what gives fan-made maps that amateurish look.

Any community-made maps would need to match the same quality, look and feel as the existing maps in MWO.

[verybad]

SLDF Xavier, on 30 May 2014 - 04:08 AM, said:

I am not asking for a mod that allows us to insert content into an individuals game I am asking for a map submission process by which we send our content to MWO they review and maybe release for public viewing/voting and then add 1 map at a certain given interval of their choosing. this would not require people to download and have the maps because they would become a part of MWO's broader content review/release process

Yeah, and that won't get much action, because after the first attempt, people that can't get their stuff in the game, try it in single player and individual games, will lose interest because they get no feedback and can't improve. Additionally, private games would allow for fixing errors or improving setups. Even the best professional developers go through numerous stages in mapmaking.

Just sending them directly to PGI without feedback from playing in them yourself is ludicrous.

[TKSax]

They are not in anyway going to let community content in the game. They have said this many many times. Your wasting your breath... much like feedback.

[verybad]

TKSax, on 30 May 2014 - 11:42 AM, said:

They are not in anyway going to let community content in the game. They have said this many many times. Your wasting your breath... much like feedback.

Yep, I do agree.It's a pity, but I think that if they're not capable of making enough content to keep interest in this game fresh, it would be best for them to fail so that a different developer can give it a try. Or if it is not done professionally, then a mod. The number of maps in this game is a disgrace.

[Atkins0n]

Cryengines out make your own stop complaining.

[Davers]

I hear PGI is hiring. Maybe some people who are good at making maps should apply?

[Xavier]

Tricepticon, on 30 May 2014 - 12:09 PM, said:

Cryengines out make your own stop complaining.

thats what I am saying we can but whats the point in making maps if there is no hope of it ever getting into the game then whats the point.