ID:183204
 Sep 22 2007, 4:48 am
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I'm sure if you happen to visit the Classified Ad's you'll see something along the lines of this. Many people will say they are looking for a coder,iconer,and that they will be the "mapper". Maybe this is just me but it seems to be just an easy way to put their name on the game. Mapping in my opinion can be done by anyone and just requires common sense, for instance, you're not gonna place a bunch of trees in a straight line. Any opinions?
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Sep 22 2007, 5:28 am
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Hazman
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I agree completely that someone who only maps shouldn't really have their name on the game, but that doesn't mean no skill is required in making maps. For example, a mapper may be reasonably expected to design the graphics for their map, and in some games this will mean building graphics etc. which require a degree of skill.
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I'm not saying that mapping requires no skill just that it can easily be done but in cases with having to design graphics for their map then yeah that would require some skill
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Monkeykid0049 wrote:
Mapping in my opinion can be done by anyone and just requires common sense, for instance, you're not gonna place a bunch of trees in a straight line. Any opinions? While mapping can be done by anyone, that doesn't mean anyone can do it well. Its really no different from programming or graphics - anyone can do them, but not anyone can do them well. There's a lot of artistic talent that goes into making good maps. Making good maps can also be very labor intensive. Just fiddling around with my Gauntlet project, it takes me many hours of effort to come up with a good map for that game, and each map is only 100x100 tiles, much of which isn't even filled. So someone who works hard to make good maps for a game should get as much credit as anyone else, especially since in a lot of games, good maps MAKE the game. How fun would an RPG be if it was just a big long line of rooms with progressively harder monsters? How fun would a racing game be if all the tracks sucked, regardless of how well it was programmed and how visually impressive it was? | |
Agreed... I've been working on an update (well, working on and off) to Murder Mansion for over a year now...
What's the one thing that's taking the longest portion of that time? Making maps... | |
mapping is probably my least favorite thing to do
its like trying to make a giant icon out of 32x32 pre-defined "pixels" (turfs!) | |
I'd quite like to release a mission or arena map editor for TitanNet. Shift all of the hard work off onto the players!
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Any person can just slap down a bunch of trees and rocks and stuff and call it a map, that doesn't mean it is a good map. Just like a room arranged a special way, there is a certain fungshway you can have with a map.
Obviously maps are going to have limitations and boundaries players cannot cross. A good map developer does it in a way that it isn't obvious. Blending in the environment, making sure a map isn't being too cluttered, and so on, the list goes on. You are right, anyone can pretty much design a map, but not everyone is going to be good at it, and just as much as game play, sound and graphics, a good or bad map design can have a impact on your game. | |
Foomer wrote:
How fun would an RPG be if it was just a big long line of rooms with progressively harder monsters?  In my opinion, not even its gameplay could save it for me. Too bad, since the combat system was great. | |
Net Hack is pretty much nothing but long rooms with monsters in it. To this day many role players would agree that it is one of the best rpgs ever conceived. I'd have to agree with them.
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Net Hack is pretty much nothing but long rooms with monsters in it. To this day many role players would agree that it is one of the best rpgs ever conceived. I'd have to agree with them. It was randomly generated if it weren't it would lose its charm very very fast. Randomly generated content on its own rarely comes up with anything as nice as clever hand crafted stuff the charm comes form its randomness and not knowing what you're going to encounter. | |
Actually, some of the greatest games of all times owed their greatness to great level design.
Starting way back, look at Super Mario Bros. The level design was top notch. Sure, there wasn't much of a theme and it didn't really make any sense, but it worked great, and was a blast to play. Moving forward, Super Mario World. Great level design made the game addictive, and I can't think of a single level that I hated(although I sucked at some). And on to a modern day example. Bioshock. That game is ozzing with great environments. The maps make the game. Sure, everything else was great about the game too, but just like any all the other departments, if it would have failed, the game would not have been nearly as good. Especially in Bioshock, the map designers need as much respect as the texture artists or the audio guys, or even the model design creators. | |
Hazman wrote:
I agree completely that someone who only maps shouldn't really have their name on the game what? "yeah I agree that music is pretty cool, but a composer for a game shouldn't even be recognized" "yeah the director was pretty good but I don't think I'm gonna put him in the credits." the reason most BYOND games are awful is because of moronic and thoughtless map-making. I can think of maybe less than five people who've actually made good maps, and two of them have posted in this thread. there's a pretty big shortage on BYOND of mapmakers who aren't braindead. | |
I agree for the most part.
Mapping can be done by anyone, and anyone can do it to a decent level, provided they put some thought into it. It takes a little bit more thought than "don't put trees in a straight line", but if you are making a house for example you think about things like who lives in the house and how many? Are they rich or poor? Are they a family and do they have kids? What sort of people are they, organized and tidy, or a bunch of tramps? And so on. After that making a house is simple, you give it what it needs, and then accomidate it to it's inhabitants. What about a forest? It will obviously have a lot of trees, but what about flowers? Probably not unless there is either an area of sunlight or they don't need much sunlight to grow. The same applies for grass, in the forest just behind my house there is very little actual grass in it, mostly the ground is just dirt. If the forest does have grass for some reason then it is likely to be long and over grown (no one to cut it), and areas that are commonly used by people will probably have shorter or even no grass because people will be trampling on and killing it. Those are the sorts of things you have to take into consideration when making a map, because lets face it, the layout of the forest isn't particularly important. It is all these other details that are. Basically, if you want to make decent looking maps, put some thought and effort into it and it will show in the finished map. | |
The Magic Man wrote:
Those are the sorts of things you have to take into consideration when making a map, because lets face it, the layout of the forest isn't particularly important. It is all these other details that are. I beg to differ, quite drastically. aesthetics are not what all good mapping is all about, it's having level design that flows intelligently and smoothly. A pretty-looking forest that is poorly planned is still just that: a poorly planned, stupid forest. all of the things you said in your post about thinking about who lives in the house, etc, is fine and dandy, yeah, if you're writing a story (which, hopefully you are!). however, there's more to level design than just saying "yeah this house has a table because a family lives there" a good dungeon is more than "yo I guess there's some bones here because someone probably died there?" | |
Games like Proelium and Megaman Wars are really map orientated so there's a proper battleground. Any game with PvP really needs to have a great map. A poor map and possibly poor map selection isn't what is going to MAKE the game, but it WILL determine gameplay and whether or not a person will stay to play on that map.
If there's a map rotation and really only 1 or 2 maps out of say...10, and the map is currently poor people will either complain about the map, ask for it to be changed, or just leave. Maps are important, but like the other aspects of the game if you have just one good part and the rest suck it won't be much of game. My opinion: Coding is the most important, mapping the second most, and icons are the third. Poor mechanics of gameplay will make it a bad game, and if the rules made by code are poor it isn't really playable. With good mechanics, if you don't have a good map to use them on, it won't be fun. Icons? Well...they just make it easier to look at and easier to tell what is going on. Really simple and thrown together icons, even if poor, won't break a game. They won't make a game either. | |
I disagree about the whole icons not making or breaking a game. From what Ive been told Drake Dungeon is really good, but I can't stand the stupid smilies faces, so I haven't played for more then a few minuets at a time.
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The Magic Man wrote:
I agree for the most part. Precisely! On top of that, if you're truly dedicated, and you want to make a map of, say, a hospital, you wind up doing a lot of planning to give it everything a hospital needs, and even do a LOT of research to make things look right and make sure you haven't made any errors (right down to not putting the MRI machine in the same room with the computer that monitors it... they have to be separated by a glass wall with enough distance away that the magnetic field doesn't disrupt the computer!*) You even think of how confusing and maze-like most hospitals are laid out (at least the ones you've seen), and come up with a fitting floorplan...  : ) *Even though said MRI machine and computer have absolutely no function in your game; they're just there for the sake of making your hospital look like a fully functioning hospital... | |
I guess you don't fully grasp the concept and you are one of the people who put as much thought in as "don't put trees in a straight line".
As I said, you have to put in a lot more thought than "put bones here because it is where someone died!". You have to think about everything, not just what will be there, but why it will be there and where it would probably be. You mentioned a family house having a table, true it probably will. But why and where would it go? I mean, unless the family is crazy they're hardly just going to slap the table any where, such as in the middle of a door way. If you take everything into concideration at all levels and put some thought into it things like good level design that "flows intelligently and smoothly" come naturally. Also, I beg to differ drastically about forests and their layouts. There is one just behind my house, and it's layout is anything but intelligent, nor does it flow smoothly. Infact it's layout is god damn awkward and there are even parts of it that are stupidly hard to impossible to actually get to (unless you fancy being shredded to pieces by nasty, sharp, prickly bushes). Not only that, but it is full of dead ends and pathways that lead back to earlier parts of the forest...! Good lord, whoever designed the forest just behind my house obviously knows nothing at all about making a good map! Right?? (I know for a fact that I could come up with a much better, ergonomical design in 5 seconds) If you ask me, when it comes to things like nature layout and design aren't too important provided that they work. | |