When community has changed

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

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Forge

#30
people grow up and move on.
this isn't the first time it's happened either.
when was the last time anyone has heard from Bob Masters or BillyBoy? C3PO? Pascal Rouaud?
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

ck3D

#31
ironic to start such a long post with such a statement but, i think you are taking duke 3D mapping a lot more seriously than it really is - going as far as talking about 'careers' and stuff as if the 'old' mappers were doing any different from your own situation, and somehow had to be more devoted to the cause and had to treat mapping as a job or some kind of more serious task ; as though they were going to make a living off it and / or make do with some type of overwhelming critical reception whenever they dare making a move.

the truth is that we are all in it for the love of the craft (or at least i know i am and i am fairly sure i am not alone), and doing it for nothing but the same reasons as you do yourself whenever you toy around in mapster which - i dare to guess - is all fun and games ; a video game from 1996, precisely. or maybe whenever you fire up mapster32 and start building stuff you are already all up in the concerns of how positively the final product might be received eventually, how high it might score, how many times it is going to be downloaded and played and whether or not people are going to introduce you to some kind of e-hall of fame by christening you as the duke 3d user map emperor ? if that is the case then sorry but i am pretty positive that most people in the community just happen to see through the flaws in such a logic and are, consequently, not going to be on the same train of thought as you - especially not the more mature mappers you seem to worship, whose work probably inspires you due to the distinguishable soul it has to it, a soul directly related to how cathartic the building process was to the author / artist which itself is something that essentially comes down to how much pure passion they put into the making of map. a passion that has less to do with the expectations of an audience than it has to do with the creative urge of expressing something raw and organic, resulting in a type of authenticity that can't be faked. ever noticed how easy it seems to be for everyone to tell (even just subconsciously) whether a map was composed out of genuine inspiration, or consists in nothing but yet another clone of the same horse that's been beaten to death a billion times before for the sake of imitation or the satisfaction of other, more obscure instincts.

but now i disgress and probably make it sound like i am taking things even more seriously than you. whatever. my point is that to me it looks like you are expecting too much from the other mappers and too much from a game in general. it might do you good to go for a more laid-back approach and just enjoy the ride and dare to be more carefree, maybe experimental and spontaneous with the engine too. this is a computer game from 1996 - noone cares and noone is going to decide on the fate of the world as we know it according to the amount of 3D spritework in your next map. nobody has anything to prove to anyone.

please be reassured that i didn't take your comments on my personal work personally. i am sorry you didn't like anarchy city X - if you ever wondered what that map meant and still means to me, as its direct author, i think it is the best map i have ever made for duke and, quite possibly, pretty much the best map i will ever make. it is as close as it gets to being the ideal level i have repeatedly been trying to make for 15 years, be it in terms of gameplay, mood, design. had that map been released by someone else sometime in the early-to-mid-2000's back when i was still a kid posting gibberish and smiley faces on AMC i would have been so psyched on it i would have started spamming every single board with comments on how that map embodied the exact level i would dream to play or make myself (something i actually did with red4 after i played it for the first time ever - for some reason something in that map just clicked as what i had always been wishing my own levels looked and felt like back then). i do not think, nor even feel like i have to once again try to one-up myself with yet another, quite possibly more important mapping effort because i feel like i have reached my goal with that one, to the point where in comparison to it i now naturally tend to regard my other levels as early sketches and missed attempts. i am not saying it the best level ever made for duke (far from that actually), just saying that it is the best level i will ever be able to come up with, and i won't be getting any closer to materializing my vision of how i like duke maps to play and look with another level again anytime soon. i am not expecting any type of universal audience to embrace that particular piece of work in some shape or form either - in fact and ironically enough, i feel like not many people even bothered to go out of their way to play that one. which i am totally fine with. the only thing that matters to me is that i personally happen to be fully satisfied with it. the rest i truely don't give a shit about. why make it a big deal ?

about hibernal solstice, i don't know what you mean by worst map either. you make it sound like mapping is a competition and mapping always come down to nothing but skills and technical advancement. granted it's not an impressive map - so what ? i enjoyed making it, the building process was 100% natural and happened to result in a simple, short and somewhat fun duke nukem level some people happened to enjoy. should have i refrained from posting it ? if so, why ? not everything has to be revolutionary (and most of the so-called revolutionary stuff really isn't anyway). i have more fun playing user maps from 1996-1997 than most of the modern stuff, just like i have always found hollywood holocaust more fun to play than, say, roch 8. where am i wrong exactly ? seeing as you seem to imply that i am. why do you think a mapper always has to push the technical side and prove anything to the world everytime with every new release ? i thought mappers only published their stuff in order to provide entertainment through new, fresh layouts that would be fun to play. it doesn't get more complicated than that to me.

and again (sorry it is somewhat hard to express myself clearly tonight) the line you seem to draw between yourself and the other mappers (older or not) is something i don't get either. notably how quick you are to talk about other people's 'careers', records or whatever absurdity again - how would you react if people judged every single one of your online moves the way you do it with other people ? what's up with your career Sanek, let's overanalyze whatever you have come up with in the community lately, wait, you haven't released a new map in months - surely you might be drifting off your duty service, better pick up the pace again or soon you will be as washed up as the rest and end up in the gutter with all the now shitty mappers that are no longer able to pay community rent ! heck man. that sounds horrible. surely you have better things to do than worry about that type of stuff and remembering that this is all just a game for which people kill one or hour or two every week or month whenever they have some spare time during which they get excessively bored would be a good start.

alright this is too much - i probably shouldn't post on forums in the physical state i happen to be in right now. would come up with some sort of conclusion but i have spent too much time typing all this already. no hard feelings or whatever on my side either of course. just wanted to express my opinion as well

Forge

#32
you could have made a map in the time it took you to write that wall of text.

must be the water or something over there in Russia making people depressed over a video game. Probably also why they attract alot of meteors (e.g. Tunguska, Chelyabinsk)
First Eddie, now Sanek.

Sanek's finally catching on that large solo map projects are slowly going extinct (and have been for several years now). I don't think you should read too much into what he said or the way he expressed himself. I believe he's trying to point out that the mappers who used to consistently put out one good project after another are no longer doing that. Constraints and interests for the people he mentioned have changed over the years, and the amount of time allocated, if any, to a project is pretty restricted. This does affect how many and how ambitious their projects are of late.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

ck3D

#33
i wasn't in the clearest state of mind last night when i typed all this. i could certainly have invested that time into a map of some sort, but i barely dare to imagine what the results would have looked like. probably interesting in some shape or form either way - or maybe the polar opposite actually and we would have ended up with a hibernal solstice 2 on our hands that the wow-factor addicts would still fail to get the point of, and e-hate me for three or four years after i share it online for other people to enjoy

the point you are making about the state of the community is definitely valid and your words are a way better way to put it. i don't know how old sanek exactly is and what his life background is like, but maybe he is still too young to understand how hard, sometimes almost impossible it can get for most grown-ups to get away from their daily responsabilities long enough to make room for so-called 'ambitious' projects for a video game nobody even plays. as 'important' (as in 'time-consuming') a duke project might be, it is still just a duke project, intended for mere consumption by a few individuals around the globe for entertainment purposes. why people would go as far as complaining about how an existing fan-made video game level - freely shared online despite the hours generously put into it by its author - not being 'revolutionary' enough flies really high above my head !

if anything we should be glad that some people still make maps for the game nearly 20 years after its release. i personally celebrate each and every new release in 2014 the exact same way i was psyched on the releases of, say, red 5, alien planet x64-2, blackened or whatever was coming out back in the mid to late 2000's. any new map that makes it out there is just as much of an achievement, for its author and the entire community. if anything i think the community is doing really well for what it is, people still manage to pump out quality projects like crazy for a game everyone else has forgotten about. who cares if it's not huge TC's all over the place or maps that have been in the making for half a decade. it's still new stuff and it's still just as enjoyable as it's always been.

also i was just browsing through the hot maps listings on MSDN a minute ago and i couldn't help but contemplate how many masterpieces (technically and conceptually) people have been pumping out ever since the original release of the commercial game, using the same old engine and tweaking it in so many ways. so much incredible craft out there, this community has seen so many geniuses - humans as a whole group are such ingenious beings, notably when it comes down to finding ways to express their vision on things. for some reason in the duke nukem 3D community history we always seem to remember the few same names - the roch series, the red series, the bobsp series and whatnot. but that's just the tip of the iceberg when there actually are so many unsung heroes out there, who have invested so much time into learning and making genuine pieces of art. every map out there - especially on that list - has something unique and great to it. when was the last time any of you played dark place 3 or 5 ? alexcity1 or whatever that map was called ? kevin cools' or reginukem's stuff ? killing time ? even those are the less obscure of the more obscure examples. my point is that every single map out there has something unique to it and should be celebrated accordingly. there is no room for 'career' talk and all the bullshit. it's 2014 and a few individuals are still getting out of their way and still find it fun to make fan levels for a video game from 1996. entire episodes are still in the works for fuck's sake ! people should just be glad they are still there and if something about their work doesn't make one happy for some reason, then they can always go do something about it themselves and dedicate four years of their lifetime to working on a 'groundbreaking map' noone will ever play anyway, whatever floats their boat really

Forge

Quote from: ck3D on  12 May 2014, 14:07:38
there is no room for 'career' talk and all the bullshit. it's 2014 and a few individuals are still getting out of their way and still find it fun to make fan levels for a video game from 1996. entire episodes are still in the works for fuck's sake ! people should just be glad they are still there and if something about their work doesn't make one happy for some reason, then they can always go do something about it themselves and dedicate four years of their lifetime to working on a 'groundbreaking map' noone will ever play anyway, whatever floats their boat really
you still sound bitter.
go get laid.  ;)
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

LeoD

Quote from: ck3D on  12 May 2014, 14:07:38i personally celebrate each and every new release in 2014 the exact same way i was psyched on the releases of, say, red 5, alien planet x64-2, blackened or whatever was coming out back in the mid to late 2000's.
[...]
also i was just browsing through the hot maps listings on MSDN a minute ago and i couldn't help but contemplate how many masterpieces (technically and conceptually) people have been pumping out ever since the original release of the commercial game, using the same old engine and tweaking it in so many ways.
That's the essence of what I planned to reply when going to bed yesterday.
Sanek, don't take it too seriously. I'm looking forward to playing LORCH3 or whatever you're up to.
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"Redneck Rampage has chickens. If you put a chicken in Duke3D then it's Duke3D with a chicken."

Forge

#36
Quote from: ck3D on  12 May 2014, 14:07:38
....for some reason in the duke nukem 3D community history we always seem to remember the few same names - the roch series, the red series, the bobsp series and whatnot.
because those are the people (plus a couple more unmentioned) that made huge impacts with their design and style. They're like the Iron Maiden and Judas Priest of mapping that everybody after was influenced by.

I guarantee if the community is still alive for another ten years people will mention MRCK but won't have a clue who the hell Forge is. That's just the way of things.

Quote from: ck3D on  12 May 2014, 14:07:38
when was the last time any of you played dark place 3 or 5 ? alexcity1 or whatever that map was called ? kevin cools' or reginukem's stuff ? killing time ? even those are the less obscure of the more obscure examples.
besides Puritan, MetHy, and myself? Couldn't tell you, but that's their problem if they don't come here and see what's been bunged lately or check "on this day". We're content over here in our nice quiet corner of the community. Too bad for everyone else who isn't interested in the old stuff.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Merlijn

@ Sanek: mappers come and go, we all got older and most of us don't have the same amount spare time we used to have. As MRCK pointed out: it's not a career, it's a hobby and a great way to express yourself creatively. Nothing more, certainly nothing less.

Personally speaking, I'm just really happy my maps have made an impression and are still quoted as an inspiration to newer mappers. And I consider the red1remake to be just as good as my old maps (perhaps not as creative or innovative, but more consistent in terms of design/gameplay/flow etc). :)


LeoD

Quote from: Forge on  12 May 2014, 20:56:45I guarantee if the community is still alive for another ten years people will mention MRCK but won't have a clue who the hell Forge is.
Well, you know what you can do to avoid this ...  ;D
Polymost HRP / Z-Pack: customize your HRP  |  User Map Maphacks
"Redneck Rampage has chickens. If you put a chicken in Duke3D then it's Duke3D with a chicken."

Forge

if you're implying that i make some grandiose map, my skills and creativity peaked two maps ago.
i could spend over five years on a level and it still won't be any better than anything else i've made. 

Duke3D "immortality" isn't really anything i seek anyway. I'd rather play the maps than make them.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Micky C

Idk that abandoned map you allowed James to use in the AMC TC was pretty impressive. I doubt I've ever seen anything so original or fresh in a Duke map using vanilla assets, plus the 3D design achieved using only pure sprite work is noteworthy.
Wall whore.

Forge

#41
thanks. but i ran out of motivation and inspiration. plus what i wanted to do would bust the asset limit.
pretty much everything else planned (besides the livery/blacksmith and chapel sections which i had good visions of, but were never built) would have been pretty mundane due to the lack of creativity

but between you and me, we both know you could make something much better with tror
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Micky C

Well I will probably try to convert some of the sprite work into TROR, if nothing else than for the hope that it will increase the framerate by not having so many sprites visible at once. It'll have a good home in the AMC TC though since we can use map caching to get around the limits. The final mission for example is broken up into 5 maps!
Wall whore.

Forge

well if you need to deconstruct the main chamber i think i still have earlier versions sitting around. I'd have to look, but there might be one that hasn't had the exterior dome capped over the top.
Take it down to the beach with a hammer and pound sand up your ass

Hank

@ no one specifically

I remember a thread on 3D Realms web site, asking if anyone actually still uses Build to make maps, because ... now fifteen years later, I still see actual new people on duke4. Moloch posted newbie questions there (3D Realms site) and it ended up as the SST TC. I say just keep the door open to the new people, you never know what will come out of it.
Lieber reich und gesund als arm und krank