Said "non-crap" maps take a lot of work to complete and more often than not stop being fun midway through their development. You say that the community should be the reason to hold through that "not fun" part. But the community is built on the hobby activity of making maps. And though I could agree that maps should be made to further the community too, the whole existence of that community derives from its underlying activity. And if that activity in and of itself can't be fun (when going beyond "non-crap" maps I mean, again), then by attribution, the community will need more to hold itself up than just its maps (and not be much of a community about making maps anymore, really).

Otherwise maps will need to be taken more seriously themselves to resume that role. It's too much to ask over the long term for an un-fun activity to be done just to hold up a community.



This is the issue that defines our whole reason for being here.

Interesting point. Elaborate a bit more, please.

lol devilesk

Elaborating:
Well there is obviously a reason why your still mapping if you find that it isn't fun?
Because it can be a way to relax, to simply let your mind work on some little funky world of your own. Ignoring the rest of life's issues.
This probably isn't the only reason, but it is certainly one that I like about mapping.

My point is that enjoyment comes in many different forms. I go to parties, but I wouldn't call them all that exciting or fun. Most of the time they end with everyone sitting around talking about stuff. But I still go to them because the experience of going there is something I want to do, not simply because it helps connect me to the other people there, but because I sometimes enjoy sitting around doing nothing.
One interesting example of enjoyment is the scary movie. The Saw series is certainly not fun, more like repulsive, yet it is a very popular theme. People go there expecting to be scared or surprised or disgusted, and enjoy it because it fulfills their demands.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 29 2008, 11:07 pm by Rantent.

Personally, because I hold out for long term gratification, and because I'm trying to master the formula of making things 'fun' with games people play. Starcraft might not be the best way to do that, but it's one I know pretty well so I'll stick with it for that reason (among others).

Good for you. You certainly have a gift to find mapping relaxing.

So to help out your point, you're suggesting that mapping is fun for the social activity, and thus reinforcing MA's point about maps being for the community? In my earlier reply, I said that for maps to hold up the community, though, over the long term, they need to actually be completed. But I think making maps for the community's good indirectly translates to personal gratification, and thus suffers from the same weakness of why maps don't get completed: That's not good enough of a reason, in other words.

Am I wrong?

People have their different philosophies and there is no right or wrong one, just like how there is no right or wrong way to live one's life. However, I will tell you my starcraft philosophical views. Some will disagree, but I can only hope that there's others like me who cherish the same values:


I was introduced to Starcraft roughly around 9 years ago. At the time, i only played single player campaigns. A year later my friend introduced me to Battle.net. This was the turning event in my life; first that was the day I made this current screenname of mine and secondly, that's where I realized that there was more to starcraft than just meleeing.

Melee is fun and has a dynamic gameplay, especially when people play on different maps. However, its variability can increase almost infinitely with Use Map Settings. And according to me replayability is a function of variability. This is where I've started playing maps like Evolves madness, Defend the Temple, etc. all of which were quite different from your ordinary "Kill that zerg" campaign mission. Now of course we see that our starcraft map editors have the potential to design such innovative maps, but the question is whose gonna be the one steering the wheels?

The answer is: you and me.

So now I've found my meaning to "starcraft life." I will use the skills and talents I was blessed with to create such maps with dynamic gameplay and have the rest of the starcraft world enjoy something else other than just melee. Also, this helps give me experience when it comes to developing my critcal thinking and analytical skills as it pushes my mind to come up with creative, simple or complex solutions when debugging or designing new or old existing maps. And so this is what I have been doing since the year 2000.

8 years later, I continue to want to do what I am doing but of course school gets in the way. But again I won't let that keep me away from doing what I've loved doing for so long.

Now why do I continue doing what I am doing? Why do I desire others as well as myself to continue making these maps? The reason is to preserve starcraft.

It's not just UMS that's becoming lame, but also the melee aspect. In the past, people would always play ladder or quality melee maps like Lost temple or maybe Hunters. Starcraft was programmed so that they'd function on such maps. But now when I look at the melee join list today, all I see are fastest and $$ maps. Ok so they are like "custom maps" for meleeing, but that's not the problem. The real problem is that people are using these maps as the definition for what "starcraft" is. This has serious side effects. All people do is just mass up units. Now this does take skill as not everyone can do it, but pretty much this is all people do when playing starcraft, they focus or know nothing else.
My roomate for instance, he was introduced to starcraft about a year and a half ago. Ever since, everyday I see him playing melee games on fastest. He has gotten really good at them, me and my friends who have played starcraft longer than him can no longer beat him on fastest maps, and he's gotten quite arrogant and cocky about it. HOWEVER, when we started playing lost temple, my roomate sucked ass. He got totally demolished as he didn't know how to micro his units or expand. Also when we were playing games like impossible scenarios, he had no clue what certain spells were. He was like "What's maelstrom? What does defensive matrix do? What does dark swarm do?" Because he's used none of this in his fastest games, he knows absolutely NOTHING about starcraft's fundamentals. He knows almost nothing about how starcraft should be played.

Well actually that might've been offtopic but neways the point is that starcraft is not what it use to be, both melee and UMS. At least that's when we're talking about the battle.net aspect. There's nothing I can do about the melee side, but for the UMS side, I feel as though I want to take action. Yes, triggering, terraining, balancing and all alike can become quite tedious and mind boggling, but I've already become aware of that and learned to ignore such things. "Work now, play later." Besides, not everything in life is fun and trouble free, everything you do has a consequence to it; it is up to you how to best deal with these issues.

..

ah shit, i need to go. I'll be back to finish this up and address some other issues later

I was saying that the byproduct of the party is that I get to know the other people better, but personally I hate getting to know people. (I prefer simply walking up to people randomly on the street and having a conversation, then never seeing them again, but it rarely happens that I never see them again.)
I went to parties because I enjoy what they are there to accomplish.

Well, to each his own. My bad for misreading.

But I think MA is right that the general consensus about map making should be as a social activity. But I'm still wondering if that aspect is enough of a reason in general to ensure maps get finished. As I said, it sorta falls into the "for fun" category that I've specified hasn't been enough to see maps being finished, commonly.

Agree? Disagree?



Exploration? I'm going to guess that's what you mean, even if I'm wrong again.

Exploration WAS a good reason for venturing into maps, but it's never been good enough reason to see them getting actually finished. And frankly, at this stage, we've about explored everything by now. I think that's not a good reason on its own anymore.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 29 2008, 11:33 pm by Tuxedo-Templar.

Yea kinda exploration, but the main reason I like walking up to people randomly, is because they are always caught off guard and reactions are always humorous in retrospect. I digress...

Lulz!


Hmm. Now that I think about that (even sarcastically), lulz might in fact be a good reason to make a map...

Look who's been here and taken away my posts!

If you want to start a dead-end existential debate over the meaning of right and wrong, I'd recommend putting it in your own Politics, Science, Religion thread.


Meanwhile, I'm contemplating what a good lulz map idea ought to be...

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 30 2008, 2:04 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

I'm start making maps for other reasons than fun once someone pays me for them.

Fair enough.


Presently I'm near to the conclusion that there is no reason to attempt making non-trivial maps anymore. Short of lulz, maybe. Or the reason I specified as my own, above.

Again, if it takes more effort than its worth it for non-trivial maps to be completed, and the reason is only going to be for fun, then the map is almost certainly going to not get completed. And thus there's almost no reason to even attempt it, short of a personal journey.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 30 2008, 2:20 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Maps are trivial. That's the whole goddamn point.

Edit: ugh double post.

Yes, but my distinction is between being trivial to make instead of being trivial in and of itself.

But yeah, I think you're right: If a map is NOT trivial to make, then the map needs to be made for a non-trivia reason. Which again, I don't think there are any (except the ones I mentioned).

I make maps because I love the sight of people hosting my maps. Plain and simple. That's my single motivation.

Tux likes to make works of art, as I see it. I just do it because its there and its something I know.

I hate art. It's so pointless. I make maps because I want to learn what it is people like to play. I have my... reasons. innocent:

You hate art, eh?

Yes. Though I get to brag about saying I made those (though I wouldn't consider those brag worthy by a long shot by some standards ), I've long since stopped doing those after I got my "fun" out of the them. There was nothing in making those that I could see an intrinsic reason for.