Mapping Quality

[EmptyShadow]

I'm sorry but I've had enough.
I'm going ot be VERY blunt here, and I'm sure many people agree with me.
This is not directed at everyone, but it is directed at a lot of you.

Obsidian Conflict's maps are among the worst I've ever seen.
And here's why

1. Fullbright
I'm not gunna say anything more on this. It's fraking basic

2. Displacements
They're not that laggy people, a server can handle more than 3 brushes.
The displacements on this mod are shit. I'm not joking, you can put several displacements together and it will look fine, never, ever use displacements for a wall unless you know what you are doing. Ever.

3. Originality
True there's a bunch of cool maps, the arcade maps, quest maps... But most of the maps here are stale. Oh so stale, I swear, next map I play that has ceaseless waves of NPCs chasing me I will burn onto several DVDs snap them into tiny pieces and shit all over them.

4. Brushwork
You can put detail into things, don't make all buildings a shitty cube with a building material on them, ever! Put pride in your maps appearance, you'd reject a model that had really low poly and no detail wouldn't you? Same goes for a map, don't be afraid to cause a little lag in exchange for some good looks.

5. "Challenges"
Challenges my arse, this is the place OC fails above all others. It bragged "team-based phyysics rich coop in a friendly environment" first off... I can finish all the coop maps, alone. secondly theres no physics in any map except a select few, docks in particular. and finally, multiplying NPC health by 10000000000 does not make a level challenges or coop you fraking retards. I will hunt you down if you change a health multiplier to anything above 2. It's stale, fighting antlion guards that take 40000000 RPGs is not fun, or cooperative, when i play a new map I download it, start a listen server, put cheats on and go through the lot with buddha on, because I honestly don't give a rat's arse about OCs combat, the OC team put a lot of work into weapons and models, and the mappers have cut combat into "Stand still, hold fire, use medkit, goto next room, repeat." until some big messag pops up saying "FuNisht the luvel! GJ!!!!!! Teh be conturned!"
Get better grammar, and continue the freaking maps. But if the map was filled with nought but NPCs with 1000000 health, don't continue, don't map again, and get the frak out of my sight you hopeless wretch.

Coop doesn't mean poor quality.
Coop means Cooperation. When I find a map where I genuinely cooperate with my fellow players to achieve a goal, I will play OC regularly again. But until then, I'll stick to games where even the beta maps look good.

In short. Mappers of OC, follow these rules

1. Spend more than 30 minutes on your map. COMPILE DOES NOT COUNT TOWARDS THIS TOTAL
2. Leave NPC stats well alone.
3. Place weapons intelligently
4. Think before you even begin work "What does my map do that nobody else has done before/well"
5. Give it a good descriptive name, Oc_kanatekotroopers says nothing, (and by the way, it is the worst OC series, ever.)
6. Don't add an Admin room. Coop needs no admin room
7. Test. Test. Test. Test. I cannot state it enough, make sure there are no bugs. Don't spend ages rendering, spot one bug and suddenly quit and fix it, grab some paper, list all the bugs you can find and go back, MAKE SURE YOU WRITE IT DOWN, believe me, you will forget one or two things every time.
8. Put effort into your maps appearance, models say nothing for your skill, and do nothing, brushwork is your most important field, practice it.
9. Don't cut corners, unless you really need to, but a map should rarely lag.
10. READ THE HAMMER WIKI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It has a shitload of info on mapping techinique, read up on loops, OC needs them, going from point A to B in a thin manhack filled corridor sucks.

And finally, to the maker of the kanateko maps. Screw You.
You are the worst offender, I never want you to map again, go die.

I bid thee all good day.

Edit: One last thing I forgot, sorry
If someone says "let's see you do better" I will kill you. Critics don't make movies do they? What I speak is the truth, and this thread is not about me, it's about the mappers/maps. Alright?

[Mr. Someguy]

hmm, let's see you do better...

[skidz]

He seems upset.

[fug4life]

Critism is good, and maps are important, especially to a co-op mod. I feel the dev's made a wise descision when they annonced that the mod is 'loosely' based on the halflife 2 world but really is open to anything.
This allows the 3rd party mappers huge freedom to experiment and make the most out of what hammer and the mod has to offer. co-op mods also rely on variation in npc's, weapons, etc. I feel the dev's of this mod have done all they can to allow their mod to easily appeal to 3rd party creators to make content for this mod, with the help of scripted weapons and map scripts they've done all they can to open their arms to anyone who wants to toy with editing something in someway for the mod. By welcoming in a 3rd party, it leaves the developers time to code and create more npc's weapons, scripts etc. Which is again really important for co-op, but unfortunately is probably the most technically challenging and most time consuming factor. The mod is almost one year old in a few days, I have played many mods in their early stages, and I'd say content wise OC is well on schedule and on par with many of 'greats' at year one.

Ok now back to the maps, when I first started playing maps for obsidian, I wasn't hugely impressed at the cosmetic quality of some of the maps and in many instances I failed to see the immediate appeal of some of the maps. Indeed the first time I saw the UFO flying about in kanateko village (3rd party map I think) I was like wtf? but soon my opinion changed of it along with most other maps, I had many instances of that on many maps, but all those instances finally contributed to a lasting opinion that it's good variation (I can't stress it enough).

You just can't have 24/7 maps like in multiplayer games (de_dust). It gets boring period.
Agreed some maps are harder than others and unfortunately normally once you've completed any map it's always easier the second time round no matter what gamplay you introduce.
For me co-op, map and npc difficulty is important, but at the end of the day all AI is beatable in any good game and so it should be. Playing aimbot's just isn't fun! Hence the appeal and growing popualrity of multiplayer games!

Finally, I have started to map for almost a year now so I don't proclaim to know all there is to know, before this I have to say my views were very similar to yours, My personal opinion has changed somewhat of the maps in that time. I now look at maps like kanateko village and break down with my eyes (and the limited knowledge I have) the map's build complexities, and nearly always in most instances I come out with nothing but admiration towards the map and the work the mapper put in to the map. I'd say this true of most of the maps out there for Obsidian Conflct.

My final word to everyone judging mappers and their work, be compassionate in your conclusions and critical of yourself (:lollololol: path to enlightenment!)

I found myself quite distressed when I read alot of the comments about
joe scoma and his maps from various people at different times, Those of you who can hand on heart say they can create better, you need not read on. Those of you who can't I also suggest you go read the Valve developer wikki, but understand this reading it might at best give you a droplet of an idea of just some of the mastery joe scoma was capable of doing with entities. where joe fails in other aspects of his mapping say graphical polish, its compensated by his experimentaion and personally IMO a visionary mapper who is among one or two other giants we are blessed to have produced maps for us and have really started the ball rolling in terms of co-op map ideas for the Hl2 engine (yes it's ok to mention sven as a source of inspiration 2 )paved the way for the rest of us to be equally as experimental and add to the flow of progression.

And for all those that critise Vasili, If he really is 9 or 10 years old like you all keep proclaiming and informing him, Well shit my moneys invested in him, if he's making maps (especially given the complexities in co-op mapping) at that age !! I'm glad to have him on board.

For me co-op is about jumping on a sever like W0rf0x's (huge selection of maps) getting to gether and fragging some npc's and showing off n shit it front of them having a laugh. That's co-op some days I play more seriously than others, some days I'm at the back of the squad just there for the ride, watching others frag npcs, shooting the odd headcrab at their feet they dint notice.

/me steps down from soap box and filters quietly back into the crowd.

<fug>

[Hell-met]

Leave the poor man alone, he probably has played all of joes coma's maps in a single night.

Don't worry dude, just don't approach any server with a map name starting with jsc_.

The rest the maps made by the community are pretty decent.

[size=0]I'm trying to map too, o lawd.[/size]

[fug4life]

[Hell-met]

I think I should change my ava and sign. Especially the sign.

[fug4life]

[Shana]

multiplying NPC health by 10000000000 does not make a level challenges or coop you fraking retards.

Yea, thats true, i hate it when i have to fight a headcrab or any other small enemy with 9999 health and 9999 attack damage, but on the other side, it also sucks when a big enemy, like the antlionguard dies in less then 2 seconds because 6 players are shooting at it at the same time, and you dont need to call others retards, just because they did something you doesnt like, kid.

[Hell-met]

...they did something you doesnt like, kid.

Actually I'm pretty sure this man knows alot more about the source engine than you may think.

But not more than me, of course

[Neico]

...they did something you doesnt like, kid.

Actually I'm pretty sure this man knows alot more about the source engine than you may think.

But not more than me, of course

o rly?

[Hell-met]

YES, REALLY.

[fug4life]

End of the day,...
Maps will come and go, good and bad, along as there is choice!
I'm currently uploading jsc maps onto a server so atleast the maps can be voted in if people so wish.
Like I said the mod is almost one year old, time to celebrate!
As time goes by and hopefully the mappers keep mapping the devs will have a choice of; maps to add, maps to cut (maybe). Maps That they can start to use to really define the mod if it even does (I thought it already was), as for all the rest that are left, it's up to fans and server ops to play or not play. I think sven did a nice job of compiling offical mappers and their maps and at the same time giving a lot of support and publicity to those that din't make the cut, just look at the Mappacks that can be found on their site

[Power-Mad]

I hope your basis for our mapping arn't those poorly ported JS maps. None the less, I can see your point. I encourage mapping of any kind to happen, but quality is a must for at least half the maps we play.

[skidz]

multiplying NPC health by 10000000000 does not make a level challenges or coop you fraking retards.

Yea, thats true, i hate it when i have to fight a headcrab or any other small enemy with 9999 health and 9999 attack damage, but on the other side, it also sucks when a big enemy, like the antlionguard dies in less then 2 seconds because 6 players are shooting at it at the same time, and you dont need to call others retards, just because they did something you doesnt like, kid.

When a headcrab like that comes around I pull out my crowbar.
And idk if EmptyShadow realizes this but if he expects great maps out of the team he should understand that the team is no more than two people.