When community has changed

Started by Sanek, 05 January 2013, 01:54:35

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Forge

Quote from: Sanek on  12 May 2013, 03:45:11
Well, just look at that: DNF 2013 mod got more than 384 (!) replies at Duke4. Just compare that to all usermaps releaed this year and even to EZ's Slender's Woods. It probably proves that only such grand and such popular ideas as DNF E3 trailer remake can draw the audiences. And maybe we just need something like that in maps? I mean the maps that audiences can consider as truly blockbusters. Maps that have a conceptual grandness, with big size and action-driven gameplay, done by big-name mappers with all these new features like TROR and Polymer (and put DukePlus in it!) and even with something new in the code department. Just imagine if there were a map released by Gambini  and ressurected legends like Pascal or Alejandro, with non-stop action and conceptual grandness in it!
Maybe it's all sounds very stupid, but...What do you think about all this?
i think announcing the release on April Fools day, then pushing back the release date several times, then playing coy with "is it or is it not a hoax", along with a few other pranks such as the C&D, created a huge following and boosted visibility to people outside the community. Marketing genius. I was more impressed with how they got this spread across the general gaming community than the actual mod itself (though it is pretty excellent itself without all the hype).
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

MSandt

Quote from: Sanek on  12 May 2013, 03:45:11
Well, just look at that: DNF 2013 mod got more than 384 (!) replies at Duke4. Just compare that to all usermaps releaed this year and even to EZ's Slender's Woods. It probably proves that only such grand and such popular ideas as DNF E3 trailer remake can draw the audiences. And maybe we just need something like that in maps? I mean the maps that audiences can consider as truly blockbusters. Maps that have a conceptual grandness, with big size and action-driven gameplay, done by big-name mappers with all these new features like TROR and Polymer (and put DukePlus in it!) and even with something new in the code department. Just imagine if there were a map released by Gambini  and ressurected legends like Pascal or Alejandro, with non-stop action and conceptual grandness in it!
Maybe it's all sounds very stupid, but...What do you think about all this?

The gaming community is not really interested in Duke3D usermaps.
"Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential." -Howard Roark

Gambini

#17
We didn´t do anything of that Forge. We only published the trailer on 1st April because that was the source code release and because it was going to be fun to make people think it was an april fools joke. All the other stuff was just caused by the over excesive way people got self-hyped. The fact the mod was named DNF with all what that means and that it came with a tangible proof (the trailer) is what generated so much attention outside the duke community.

Forge

of course subject matter was really important (DNF). especially when coupled with all the drama that this created with "delays" and hoax rumors
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

MSandt

It's not really something that can be replicated. It worked this time because of the historical context.
"Whatever their future, at the dawn of their lives, men seek a noble vision of man's nature and of life's potential." -Howard Roark

ck3D

Quote from: MSandt on  12 May 2013, 12:43:58
Quote from: Sanek on  12 May 2013, 03:45:11
Well, just look at that: DNF 2013 mod got more than 384 (!) replies at Duke4. Just compare that to all usermaps releaed this year and even to EZ's Slender's Woods. It probably proves that only such grand and such popular ideas as DNF E3 trailer remake can draw the audiences. And maybe we just need something like that in maps? I mean the maps that audiences can consider as truly blockbusters. Maps that have a conceptual grandness, with big size and action-driven gameplay, done by big-name mappers with all these new features like TROR and Polymer (and put DukePlus in it!) and even with something new in the code department. Just imagine if there were a map released by Gambini  and ressurected legends like Pascal or Alejandro, with non-stop action and conceptual grandness in it!
Maybe it's all sounds very stupid, but...What do you think about all this?

The gaming community is not really interested in Duke3D usermaps.

and as far as I am personally concerned (and I might not be the only one), the other way around is also true, as a Duke 3D mapper, I am not really interested in pleasing the 'gaming community' altogether. I just want to make maps, regardless of whether 10 or 10000 people play it. It's not my job, or anything my life depends on, just a hobby, so as long as I know that at least some people enjoy it, and I get a couple of responses as feedback, I am fine with it. As long as it is not a map I spent 3 years on and it gets blatantly ignored in terms of response, because that would be discouraging to an extent (it still would not affect my desire to make new maps).

remember how the name of one of my 2010 maps was 'Duke Nukem Forever Bottles To The Ground' ? I added the Duke Nukem Forever bit as a form of social experiment, just to see if the name would get the download counters any higher (most people on the internet don't even read what the stuff they download is about). It got a fairly significantly higher download count on DN-R if I remember correctly, not to mention the download counter was reset three times due to bug fixes.

Sanek

I've noticed that many players are willing to play any sort of map, regardless of the design quality. Such releases as Devastation Level 01 is not bad at all, but not all that worth, the desigh is terrible. >:(
Oh, and if everybody like maps with nice idea and bad design, we can churn out new Edge map every day. >:(

Micky C

Devestation level 01 has pretty good overall design and is quite memorable with its shear use of duketalk and numerous scripted events and sense of progression. It's also filled with noob mistakes of course, but there's so much going on in the way of non-stop distractions that it's easy to overlook that during gameplay. Perhaps 94 is a little high, but review scores aren't set in stone by some perfect infallible machine (no offense Mikko), but they're only loosely based on the reviewer's perspective and are half arbitrary.

The Edge was well received because it was so different and unique. If you released an Edge every week, people would grow tired of it sooner or later and lust after some Duke action.

While perhaps maps these days are getting a few extra points then they might have gotten in days where more maps are released, I think overall they've been roughly accurate of the "true" score of the level. Alternatively you could have the school of thought that scores are meant to be relative to other contemporary releases, I mean probably not. But it's hard to keep scores consistent for the better part of 2 decades.
Wall whore.

Forge

maps are subjective to personal opinions and so are reviews. it goes with the territory.
i could take a map like Red5 and nitpick the shit out of it, knocking it down from 99 to the low 90s. Most people will disagree, but there will be a couple people out there that will think it's right.
bottom line; maps and reviews are done for free on your own time, though they're open to criticism, you should take the detractor's disagreements with a grain of salt. Generally the majority of the community takes it for granted that maps and reviews will be done, are quick to point out flaws, but do little themselves to try to come up with something better.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

ck3D

i remember in 2004 or so when i had a duke nukem 3D reviewing site and forum for a short while. i was trying to give maps scores that i personally deemed as more fair, not just in comparison to the other reviewing sites that were already around but on the general 1-10 (or was it 1-100 ?) scale. so many people were shocked and appalled that the majority of maps were being given ratings around the 60-80 mark (which is still, technically, well above average) instead of the 90+ points they were used to seeing constantly everywhere else.

basically i agree with people saying that good design doesn't necessarily make for a good map. some of my favorite maps that i consider the most fun to play actually are some of the most averagely-designed ones... i couldn't really care for abundances of cliché 3D spritework, let alone modern technical prowess like TROR and whatnot, if it doesn't make the aesthetics of the map look fresh and original and moreover if the level layout and progression is shit then the map could look as good as possible for all i care, i probably wouldn't remember it ten minutes after pushing on the nukebutton, then of course it's all a matter of balance and yadda yadda but you catch my drift

Sanek

Is it worth to work hard on maps nowadays? I mean, you can work on your map about a 5 month, a year or more, and the only thing you get is a couple (well, 3 or 5) of comments. After such a long and hard work it's really disturbing to get a tiny feedback. I can make a LORCH map every month, or even every week, which is probably a lot more satisfying, because you constantly get a feeback.
So, what do you think about lack of feedback?

Forge

#26
the same thing i think about feedback when i brought it up over 4 years ago.

make stuff for fun and yourself first.
if you're making maps for feedback then prepare to be disappointed (see eddyZ for an example)
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Micky C

Yeah, gone are the days where you'd spend more than a year working on a high-detailed map. When did the detail-era peak? 2008-2009? After that people started to realize that maps could be just as good without mega details, as long as they did everything else ok, which resulted in greatly reduced development times and hence mapping was more time-efficient.

People seem to be happy with more or less classic styled maps these days, although IMO people should aim a little higher than typical classic. A few months is probably the ideal development time for a map. Sure if everyone started making week-long maps the community might be happy with the increased number of maps to play in the short term, but when the market gets saturated so to speak, people will start losing interest.

I also remember Methy claiming how megaton and workshop was the savior of duke 3D or something, saying he got thousands of downloads for his maps, however most of this was probably only the case because he was among the first to upload his maps (which meant both increased visibility, and because everyone was trying out workshop back then because it was new, which isn't the case any more). Upload maps of the same or greater quality these days and you'll only get a fraction of that reception unfortunately.

Of course I'm also working on a map of my Uni for the AMC TC that's intended to be a really long term map. It'll be a large map for sure, but even then the playtime vs time making it ratio will be awful. But as Forge has said, I'm making the map for myself first.
Wall whore.

Fernando

Quote from: Sanek on  15 March 2014, 21:52:28
Is it worth to work hard on maps nowadays? I mean, you can work on your map about a 5 month, a year or more, and the only thing you get is a couple (well, 3 or 5) of comments. After such a long and hard work it's really disturbing to get a tiny feedback. I can make a LORCH map every month, or even every week, which is probably a lot more satisfying, because you constantly get a feeback.
So, what do you think about lack of feedback?
Welcome to my world. :D
Honestly, you should just map to make yourself happy. I think it should always be like that. Even though feedback is always welcome, nowadays people just tend to look for themselves rather than help others, at least is what I think.

I mean, come on. I announced a bonus Dukematch episode for my FM3X bundle a few weeks ago, it's practically finished and it has received no attention at all. Bummer! But I'm not even bothered at all.

I'll just map for my own pleasure and liking. I still map vanilla, classic 3DR-style maps, for the original 1.3D DOS version (the one which is pretty much dead since years ago, but now I play both DOS versions all the time, rather tan ports). If people like them, that's great for me. If not, well bust them.

Keep mapping for yourself, Sanek. Don't feel frustrated because of lack of feedback. :)

Sanek

In the last few days I'm start to think that, let's say, careers of the majority of mappers has come, or coming to an end. BobSP4 is interesting in it's concept, but it's not as polished as previous maps in the series, and the idea seems rather raw. Merlijn released his remake of Red, but he can hardly surpass his previous works, which have been released a long time ago. And MRCK, the most active of all the old mappers, release a lot of new maps each year, but I personally think that he has become a prisoner of his own style. Yes, he's trying to make some variety to the gameplay , but it's not really as interesting as it should be. His extremely big Anarchy City X are not that exciting in terms of gameplay, it's very difficult map in the first place. And Hibernal Solstice is the worst map the MRCK ever done.  :(
I think it is not too far when the majority of mappers leave the mapping at all.

Please, don't get personal after this post, I just wanted to express my opinion...