So one morning while I was mapping I was thinking: What makes a good map? Well I usually focus on 4 main categories, which I call TAGS: Terrain, Atmosphere, Gameplay, Story. I use this to help me complete a map, and to focus on, not only one, but most or all the aspects of a good map.
Terrain: I start with terrain, as do most mappers, but I focus on what will keep the player guessing, and I try to make nothing the same in a map's terrain. Keep it original, and fresh.
Atmosphere: I think of it as the tone of the game, the feeling of the surroundings, the idea of the situation. Atmosphere is a lot of terrain and dialogue in my thought process, and it may mean something else in yours, but either way you need atmosphere to have a good map.
Gameplay: I tend to think of gameplay as the way a player interacts with other units or how the fighting sequences out, along with features and unique fighting triggers orsomething along the lines of that. Gameplay is truely essential to even have a map that is worth playing, I am not particuarly good at it lol.
Lastly, Story: The heart and soul of an rpg, it feeds the entire purpose of the game. Without a story it's a pintless map, in my opinion and view point, that is.

If there is anything you feel is wrong with this theory to help spread out the essentials of a map to make them hopefully better, go ahead and comment.

Well it's good that you're thinking of theory, but there's no magic bullet classification for the subjective definition of a 'good' map. Or if we're talking inclusively for perceived subjective standards, it could be possible to have a generally 'good' map without good terrain, atmosphere, or story.

This is assuming we're talking about more than just RPG maps.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 22 2009, 6:39 am by Tuxedo-Templar.

Zoids 3v3 RPG.

Has none of the above (well, maybe good gameplay) but is still one of the best maps of all time in my opinion, because it has a very high mark in the "Fun" category.

Easy to play, Hard to master.

Easier said than done.

Only on an RPG should "terrain" matter.. but even then, Terrain should only be a subcategory of "Atmosphere"... :\

At least that's what I think the general B.net public would feel...

but .. then again, "AGS" isn't a good acronym :C

How about "GAS" ... Gameplay, Atmosphere, Story...

I'd also say Creativity would be key. Especially since SC RPGs are quite limited... if everyone does the same thing, your map doesn't stand out.. So u can Stick C in there.. and make it ... CAGS..
But w/e.. it's just something for each person to think about.

I very much disagree. Terrain is important on any map type. Would you be satisfied with lacking, blocky or disfunctional terrain for your Temple Siege? It doesn't matter if it an Arena, RPG, The Thing, or Lotrish.

I agree.
Diplomacy Empires would be just another Civ/Diplo game if not for the work I've put into the terrain. When the .90 update comes out its going to be some of the most extended and complex terrain ever used for any map of it's type.

I'm not yet versed in theory, though once I get into college I'll learn all about design and game theory. But for now, what makes the best map is if people find it fun or not. There are a few contributing factors to a map being fun.

First of all, I want to stress that presentation is half the battle -with StarCraft it always has been. I've always said this to new mappers, and will continue to say it forever. Presentation includes terrain, overall beauty, and learnability of the map. Basically, the map needs to give a great user experience. This means that your map can not be frustrating or too hard to learn, and it also needs to look appealing to the eye -at least enough to keep the map fun. When I create maps I stress my maps' beauty and professionalism as much as I can with the amount of time I am given.

In order for a map to be fun it needs to somehow stay away from monotony, and you need to provide the players with a goal to achieve. You can not make this goal too difficult to reach, or frustration on the players' part sets in. You also can not make the way to achieve the goal(s) monotonous, or there will be no sense of achievement to make your game seem worth the time. In order to stray away from monotony in PvP or PvM maps, you should stress variety. Give the players many different ways to kill many different things. Let the players find tactics to merge two strategies, or give the players the ability to use tactics to counter a certain strategy, and even counter certain counters. This becomes sort of a segue into balance; all players must have no inherent advantage over another due to sheer design.

Storyline can also be used to keep the player's attention, and to keep things interesting. Using a storyline, you can lay out in a comfortable way the goals of the game the player has, as well as obstacles. Storyline also affects the overall atmosphere of your map, but with StarCraft maps, storyline isn't too much of a key factor as a map can easily be fun without one.

Depending slightly on the genre, but as a rule of thumb: You need to keep a constant flow to the game. Keep the players occupied at all times, keep things fast paced. This isn't always true for all maps, but for the vast majority of maps, you need the players to constantly have something to do.

Lastly, you should be aware of your target audience. I've seen my own maps fall into utter oblivion just because I made the map for the general SC public when the map was geared towards more of people like us here at SEN. The maps I made in the past were all too complicated to learn for the average SC noob, and took too much effort to actually be good at for a lot of SC noobs to appreciate the map. A great example would be my Absorb n Reflect map. I spent probably 2 months creating that map (I was learning how to make maps all the while, it was an earlier project of mine), but only half the people who played it liked it. Either people loved it because they understood the gameplay before frustration drove them away, or they said it sucked and made no sense, leaving me snide remarks before exiting the game. This sort of ties in with the user experience, you can't make things frustrating or make things un-intuitive; you must give the average player enough in game resources of explanations for them to quickly figure things out on their own, and make learning the map fun.