Ah! So we get to the key issue at last! Took long enough.

No thanks to devilesk, of course.



Therein is the dilemma I'm trying to address: Clearly, to finish maps, you have to acknowledge their 'not fun' aspect and find a way to push through it. Or in other words, you're really gonna need a specific reason as your source of motivation; not just wishy-washy "for fun". Which means that, inevitably, most maps end up being abandoned because the author's "for fun" conditions stop being fulfilled about half way into the map.

However, now we get to the heart of the matter: SHOULD we even do that? I mean, now that it's clear what needs to be done to finish a real map (not just your standard bnet junk, I mean to say), here's the problem then:

• Bnet doesn't care about them 80% of the time.
  
• Blizzard doesn't care about them 100% of the time.
  
• The UMS community isn't what it used to be.
  
• SC is over a decade old; it's game engine is outdated many times over (for the purposes of map making, I mean; gameplay is still viable, of course).
  
• We get to put up with people like devilesk still around for no real reason.
  

So... is it worth making decent maps at all, really? Again, it's clear we have to find a consistent way to take them seriously to get them finished. But what intrinsic reason is there to take them seriously?

That's the question I'm pondering.




For me, with AG, I think of it as something I want to have that can actually be played. My logic is that if I can do that correctly even once, then I'll be able to duplicate it, and thus have learned the key to successful gameplay. That's in part my goal for later: So I have an acute idea on how to make real games. I do in fact intend to make an actual game. But not before I'm certain I have a good idea as to how.

My situation is the exception here, though. For the purposes of a "for fun" hobby, I've begun to see that there's almost no reason to take maps seriously, really. And thus, knowing that it then becomes highly unlikely to expect reliable map completion, there's almost no reason to even bother. Except perhaps with trivial maps (which are the only ones bnet ever seems to recognize, anyway).



Discuss.

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...

Dead-end... more like no-end. It's the journey not the destination.

If everyone approached philosophy with the notion that you must arrive at an answer then they would never get anywhere, because once you reach one "answer" a dozen questions come up. The point is what you get from the journey in thinking about things and how you thought about them.

No-end might as well be a dead end if it's something you need to make a decision upon. That's why I find your attempts at invoking broad existential philosophy pointless and obnoxious with no purpose in this particular thread.

Note that I didn't create this thread in the Politics, Science, Religion forum.
More or less. I don't expect to reach a single resolution for the philosophy of map making. I just want to see if people can find reasons of their own to take maps more seriously so they can be finished more often. That's enough.

But short of MA's attempt to suggest mapping should be for the community (which does really just translate to a variation of the same "for fun" thing that I'm pointing out isn't working), or Rantent's inadvertent suggestion at doing it for lulz (and of course my own, being to use maps as prototypes for bigger stuff later), it appears there are no good ideas for this.

Is the general consensus, therefore, that we should stick to making crappy cheap bnet maps only? Because those are the only things we can hope to consistently be able to finish, otherwise.

There's no point to maps that can't be finished, I think.

What makes mapping seriously better than mapping unseriously. I think the better alternative is just to have people ponder their own reason for making maps and strengthen their reason. For whatever reason one maps for, there is never a wrong or preferable reason.

Define "good".

Define "point" and why. It's not only about the destination, it's about the journey. Hence the connection to WoodenFire and his Crescent Dyne. It may not have ever been finished, but it doesn't really matter.

Because I'm trying to establish that people who use "for fun" reasons fail to finish their maps reliable. Simply strengthening it (like MA suggesting also community as the reason) helps, but doesn't hold up over the long term. But when someone decides they want to do something like try to prove a point with their map, or create it for a specific goal (one which they're serious about), THEN you start to see the maps being finished.

Surely you know this.

No.

Being just about the journey is greedy. You get an experience for yourself, but without returning something of substance back to the community from that journey, the community diminishes, and the 'journeys' of others diminish too. That is, again, if there's no maps being made, then there's no material for people to play, learn from, attract new interest, etc.

But aside from the community, actually finishing a map gives you the other and most important half of the journey that you otherwise miss out upon. It may not always be the 'fun' part, but without it, people get by with the notion that all their gratification should come to them in the short term rather than the long, and thus they may make a habit of consistently being even less inclined to complete the things they start (maps or not). A nasty cycle.

No, fun as a reason for making maps is equal if not superior to making maps seriously.

No, as you experience the journey, everyone else does if you're posting about it in a map production forum. You can't deny that people went along for the ride with Crescent Dyne. I'm sure the people not even making the map knew more about it than the maker.

If one has been making a map purely for fun, then once they finish it they are rewarded with even more fun. If one makes a map only for the sake of making a map then they can't fully appreciate the reward of fun once they finish it.

Not in terms of getting them actually finished for a change (for the non-crap ones, I mean).

Well we DID get the terrain from the map, and that was the big part. Then it blew up into expectations grounded off that tiny slice of a real product, and then in time toppled over.

But, see, there WAS something that come of it. The terrain. Which was enough to make it at least not a complete lie. But ending up as such, ultimately, has reduced some general confidence in the community. As what happens with every other map that fails to get finished, but to their own varying degrees.

You can still have fun making a map and also refering back to your critical reason for making it when you're not. I don't see why they should conflict. Afterwards, if you achieve your goal, it's probably going to be even MORE rewarding than just general kudos, besides. And that's on top of the general kudos you'd get as well.

By the way, I'm working off the notion here that there exists a reason to motivate any degree of action. In other words, I don't think people are just only capable of the little amounts of work they say they are. I think they just don't want to do more because the reason they've found isn't good enough. That's the basis for my argument on taking maps seriously.

Is that something you guys agree with?

Define "good".

Define "crappy" and "cheap".

Seriousness needs to have a place, though, or the maps won't get done. It's what you fall back on as your way of sticking to the map for the long term when it's no longer entertaining for the short.


Once you get past that, then you can get into the specific elements of things that prevent a map from being finished. But if your heart and mind are not in the right place to begin with, no amount of tips or hints will help.

Motivation is the whole fucking issue we've been talking about. Where it fails and where it works.

It's not a molehill. I've come close to quitting on maps like Rush, Trigger Happy D, Kill Me, AG, etc. countless times because I've kept having to reevaluate my reasons for continuing with them. People just don't bother doing that, though, and thus the reason they each consistently reach dead ends with their respective maps.

Yes, but that doesn't mean mapmaking is "serious business".

No. But it helps to find a way to think that it is in order to finish maps. And there are sane reasons to take maps seriously, if put thought into them (I like my prototyping reason especially because it is something that I'm going to use for a later, non-Starcraft project).