Tell me why there are hundreds of crappy maps out there, when it's so easy to make one? Even more so easy to make one now with Forge to make them with. My answer is this; people don't take the time to design a map. All it takes is about an hours thought into a map to make it halfway decent.

Many maps I come across have so many problems in them, it makes me wonder if the map maker even bothers to go through their own map to test it before sending it out to the world! Many maps contain smearing, or a mass amount of poor polygons that cause bouncing, and also areas that physically stick a player to a spot.

I have a lot to say about maps, but I will try to just complain about the most pressing issues, and what causes many maps to be trash-can filler. I used to download every map that hit various places, and I kept about 1 out of 20 maps. Needless to say that it is a rare find for a good map. I stoped getting maps lately because I am just sick of going through YAMUM (yet another messed up map).

I will start with net maps, since they happen to be the the most type of map out there. One of the most pressing issues with a net map is polygon count in any given view. "Simply Elegant" (an old map, but a good example) has a total of 99 polygons, and guess what... they are all in the same room. This map runs like crap on anything less than the top 604ppc. What is the big deal with polygon count you ask? It means the world during a net game. If a map makes the game run even more slow than it is, then no-one will like it.

The point I am making about the number of polygons, is for map makers to be aware of what they are doing. Visualize what you want and if one polygon can fit for two to three others, than by all means put the one polygon down. This is called optimizing your map for speed and smoothness. Be careful though. If your going to make a complex area, try not to make it all out of 8 sided polygons because it will then cause a "too many transparent sides in view" error. Many times than not, if your optimizing a net map for speed, you will not be making these really complex areas in the first place.

Another issue I would like to bring up about net maps is design. For Bobs Sake stop converting old Bungie levels! Waldo has been done to death! Every map that says that it is a conversion, never gets downloaded or played much at all. Likewise, any map that is a conversion or remake of any Marathon or Marathon2 map never makes it to my hard drive. Design something new! If you are a beginner map maker and wish to do a conversion or yet another arena, then go right ahead... just don廠 upload it to the world and waste our time and hard drive space with it! Save our bandwith with the quality stuff you will make after testing out things.

Some more words about design would be about flow. Make a map smooth in both visual and motion. Visual meaning that the textures be visually aligned and wisely chosen (a real easy thing to do in forge). A common thing I used to see was a bunch of ceiling height changes in a very well lit room, with all the wall textures unaligned. This was a cause of Pfhorte's inability to auto align textures for you. More texture faults are when someone just forgets to put a texture onto somthing. This is so disgusting to come across, and if people would just run through their levels once, they would see it and fix it. There is no excuse for it. Granted I have had my times where I forgot a texture somewhere, which can happen when making a map in forge. The visual part of forge allows you to realtime apply textures, but what it doesn't allow you is to manually place textures that are in areas you can't phyically get too. Some play and point pushing and unorthadox placement of the starting point for visual-mode editing have to be done to texture these areas.

Flow for motion is a little more tricky because it requires a brain. Don廠 have a ton of one way dead ends all over the place, where it is easy to wait for someone and waste them without a bit of chance of getting out in time. These can be put in if they are small, and maybe have some really high power object in it to draw an individual in. Dead ends are no fun in a net map. Also the opposite is true also. Having way too many directions in every room to go posses stress and panic that there is no one place to stand and take a rest. Some maps with good flow are: Head Pfhor the Sewers, Pfhactory, and any of my maps (hee hee).

Don't make some artsy-fartsy trippy looking map with annoying lighting effects and wigged out textures that pulsate slide or jiggle around. They are looked at once and never played again because they suck serious donkey turds. Likewise, don't make a map where a lot of action will be under water. Every crappy map that has Water in the title is thrown away. They suck, and who gives a flying monkey if it comes with some screwed up physics model so you can shoot underwater.

Objects are a key feature in net maps too. Do not use canisters, blocks, or any scenery object that causes a player to stop, or get stuck, on them. You can use them if you stick them behind a window or grate that you can never get around. But don廠 ever put them in a walkway or a hall. It's even bad enough sticking them in a corner of a room because you get stuck on them. There is nothing wrong with lights, blood, bones, and dirt. "QuasiMoFo" had some nice blood trail effects in it, also "Desperate Measures" has nice lights down in the darkness.

A while back I was browsing the Testing Grounds' Hints, Tips, Tricks section and came across a disturbing note put up by some crap head who had no experience with map making at all. I will not mention their name for the sake of dignity. They said, in so many words, this: "You know maps are getting way to visually interesting and in return are turning bad. Maps should consist of just three textures and a door texture. Pick three textures and stick with it through the whole map. etc. etc..." This person actually said this! I mean sheesh, gimmie a break, any map done in just three textures is just... ergh... ugh, BLEAH! I don't care how good the flow might be, it will be so visually boring, I would fall asleep playing it! Try to stay uniform in what your doing, but don廠 go so far as to make every room/hallway look exactly the same in just a few textures.

Another thing this clueless individual said was to not include and Bobs or Aliens in a net map. Obviously this moron never heard of the check box to turn off aliens in the Gather Net Game dialog box! I always set my maps to include aliens so the map is even fun as a solo carn level. I can廠 be in a net game, every minute I wish, to go kill something. So, I turn to the net maps that have aliens built in for solo play. This is one of the most leading factors that make my maps so wildly played, net or solo! Now, as for putting Bobs in a net map, go right ahead. Putting an initial count of Bobs is really fun because you can waste them in the first minute of the net game for sport and not have to worry about them coming back (if you have aliens turned off that is).

Now onto solo adventures. I have much to say but I will also limit this one down to the specifics. The first thing is to stay away from using the damn grid to make every level. It makes for extreme boring play and flat square looking rooms/hallways. Also avoid making endless rooms that are just a few boxes stuck together making a square room. Makes things interesting because these maps are going to be played solo and not in a carnage frenzy. Net maps are not mostly stared at for detail because of the speed of play, but solo levels people will be wandering cautiously around and looking at things for clues. Making endless rooms, and wiggling hallways with no real direction will lead to a person quitting the solo level and trashing it.

An example of the worst solo levels I have come across will have to be "The Garden". This thing sucked serious pig putter. It was 8 levels long, but they could have all easily been combined into 1. Maybe 2 due to the fact the last level was the net level that was yet another arena. An example of a really excellent solo package is of coarse EVIL. It is the largest downloaded and played scenario to date.

Another thing about solo levels that has to be taken into account is console and chapter screen graphics. To give an example of some really shitty chapter screens is that lame solo adventure "The Garden". It is better to not do any chapter screens than to do something so pitiful as the ones in that solo level. This guy just made green and red dots in a diagonal pattern. I was laughing so hard, I don't think I ever finished playing it. The console graphics were also regurgitated Bungie graphics. If your going to create a new solo level, then Bob-damnit, make you own console graphics and stop using Bungie's!

To finish, stop making crappy maps. If your starting out and want to just make a level to see if you can, and test out the Map editor, then go ahead. Just please don't send it out to the world, because we don廠 want to be bothered with it. Also make maps fluid, interesting, and contain more than two or threes light types. Maps with all one lighting are pure trash.

Be sure to check into the Hastur's Workshop at doubleaught for more map making tips and tricks. There is also a nice section on Do's and Don'ts to net map making.

Happy map making!

SITES OF MAPS OF VARIOUS MAP MAKERS