About us, mappers

scifista42 said:

A - I give the players what they want!
B - I'm the king on my playground, deal with it.

Going by this and not the wall of text after it, I'd say both. I give the player what he wants. The player being me and only me.

I think I want to be a B, but I just cant get myself to "go nuts" and always have other players in mind.

Such a "B" thing to say, ToD.

I predict a war in the far future between the B-chiz and the A-holes.

DoomWorld War I.

And by I mean like XII.

Snakes said:

Now all that needs to be done is to classify the plethora of gray-areas that this is creating and we'll be at about 60% accuracy.

Yeah a thread like this only leads to a bunch of "you can't define me I'm too unique" protest posts.

Springy said:

That's pretty much the same case for me. I would call myself the lazy mapper, a person who closes the editor after drawing a linedef.

I think Leonardo da Vinci actually did that with some of his paintings. :P

40oz said:

Yeah a thread like this only leads to a bunch of "you can't define me I'm too unique" protest posts.

More like the lines set out to divide mappers in half are too narrow in definition.

I'd say I fit pretty snugly into category B. The first post seems scarily accurrate and while I was reading it I was nodding my head throughout. The only part of the category B description that isn't quite like me is near the end of it - sometimes I really am very lenient with a map's imperfections (see: DTS-T), but sometimes I'm the pickiest critic there is. From what I understand about how my own mind works, it probably depends on context and outside stuff, not actually contained within the map itself: who's the mapper, how the wad was presented, how it was received, what's the popular opinion, etc. I know it's wrong to let those kinds of things influence my opinion quite so much but oh well. And the range of maps that I appreciate isn't very wide either. But the rest of it is pretty close, I wonder if it's by coincidence or remarkable insight.

By the way, I appreciate being included in the mappers list at all :D

Antroid said:

... But the rest of it is pretty close, I wonder if it's by coincidence or remarkable insight.

I admit, and feel free to quote this, that I felt a little like a carnival fortune-teller while writing the OP. As I was consequently thinking off and writing down aspects of a personality of someone other, I felt that in fact I don't know anything. Some of these thoughts are on a border with a plain guess. I was trying to prove and justify everything I wrote at least for myself, because I was telling what I honestly think, but because I don't have any objective scientific proves, I can't do but hope that people will accept the possibility I may be true.

But certainly I was trying to create a theory based on something observable, not just a guess. Don't get it wrong!

Also, the people whose names I mentioned are people I am/previously was familiar with their works (more or less), and who did I just remember at that moment. With a little searching around Doomworld forums and downloading maps, as I wanted the most possible amount of people to have there, while not spending too much time to it. :)

You could have added a poll.

Antroid said:

By the way, I appreciate being included in the mappers list at all :D

Echoing this sentiment. Although I've released very few maps ever, and my magnum opus is still slowly being worked on, thanks.

I think a lot of the early mappers fell into type B by default, using primitive-ish tools and without an audience that had collectively lined up all its pet hates into one Ur-goodmap ideal (gotta have indoor and outdoor areas, pistol startability, revenants everywhere, tiny little architectural secrets and so forth), the more creative mappers came up with really disparate work - the Aliens TC, INVADE1.WAD, Trinity College are all breathtaking to me because the only decent mapping guideline was Knee-deep, and none of them resemble it at all. :)

Oh no, Im a type B mapper? An egoist! Well, I suppose I don't think of myself as such, but maybe your right. I actually hate unplayable maps that don't consider the player. Hopefully as time goes on ill graduate into the A camp, cause it sounds more appealing to me.

It seems to me like there's a sort of consensus that it's bad to be a type B.

My next small, non-Nex Credo project will be a type B. I'm so proud.

Eris Falling said:

It seems to me like there's a sort of consensus that it's bad to be a type B.

Probably mostly among those A-type jerkwads! I for one am proud of considering myself a type B mapper.

Interesting thread scifista and very elaborate thoughts!

Regarding A or B - please yourself and you'll please some others too. Birds of one feather... guess we know the rest. ^^

Random info...
All my maps, which are mostly unreleased since they're part of my "soon to be" mega wad, are random encounters with the "cosmos" - they build themselves... in a way archetypes in map form.
The only thing I do is path/item checking and visual polishing afterwards.

Btw, my fav. mapper is 40oz by a landslide.

Honorable mention - Joey Ilya because his creations have that youthful "1994 + map editor" charme.

Eris Falling said:

It seems to me like there's a sort of consensus that it's bad to be a type B.

I was actually thinking the opposite, minus the consensus part.

For a community project I'm happy to bend with the wind, but I'll be going type B on all your asses when i make my own megawad, mark my words...

mouldy is a bipolar mapper!

I'm a B-type mapper, the description sounds slot like my mapping habits.

I'm also a B-Mapper. I try not to be and go in the middle between the two, but I end up making the wad too enjoyable for myself.

B for sure.
I map to make something I like playing first. If others like it that is a plus.
I also very hard headed and don't like people telling me how to do things that I know how to do.

It's nice to see myself in this list, considering the fact that I've released very few maps. And I wonder which ones you played...

I don't want to categorize myself, you can put me wherever you want and I won't be against it, transgressing the boundaries is definitely more interesting than sticking to them for me. The elaborate explanation of a type shows my clear affinity to A type (especially that pattern about 'unconventional' gameplay being inferior to usual killing routine is 100% hit for me), but in terms of map-making and further social intercation I'm much more egoistic and don't intend to please everyone. If you don't like it - don't play it, that's my point.

Demonologist said:

It's nice to see myself in this list, considering the fact that I've released very few maps. And I wonder which ones you played...

100 lines maps of course, that was enough for me to get the idea :) (plus I've heard about Realm of Demonology, haven't played though) It's apparent that you want to please slaughterplayers, which is why I put you in A category :)

Well, actually the only player I want to please is myself, but if anyone else likes what I'm doing - that's cool, slaughterplayers or not, and I appreciate constructive feedback. See for yourself though, as I said before - you may put me wherever you want, I don't mind.

Antroid said:

By the way, I appreciate being included in the mappers list at all :D

Me too! I also liked being in the "not defined" list. Maybe because I started as a "B" and now I'm trying to be an "A" :)

I have to say that, if my inclusion in the list and indefinability was based on my contributions to 100 Lines, there are other things that I have done that may reflect my nature as a mapper more:

Murderous Intent is over a decade old, and definitely a type B. Feels nowadays like I went too far with it, but I just wanted a level set that was cruel. Obviously there is an inner sadist (so says my partner) that needs to get out. Caution: many texture misalignments, and rather cramped.

Sinister Intention was my 'return to the scene' mapset, 7 levels like its half-predecessor Murderous Intent. I would say this one is a hybrid type A/B set, as there are definite "give the player something fun" type A moments (MAP01, MAP03, MAP07) and some definite "I'm doing this shit for ME and this is what I enjoy" moments (MAP05, MAP06).

900 Deep In The Dead, despite its experimental nature, is a type A in that I stuck quite closely to the expected Knee Deep tropes, even if I played with them a little (in the case of E1M8). I will admit that E1M9 was weak as hell, I just wanted a little experimental playground and a token 'gimmick' secret map.

The in-progress Nex Credo is more a type-A-with-type-B-tendencies, I would say. To balance this, I may work on a short (7 levels, natch) project soon which is so type B it hurts.

Of course, I am taking from this the binary that type A = designed with an audience in mind and type B = self-indulgent, whimsical, and not afraid to insult everyone who isn't the author.

Just figured I'd chip in and say I whole-heartedly agree that I'm a "B" in the context of this thread. I suspect it's why I'm basically inactive these days - I've largely satisfied myself with mapping and can't bring myself to work on anything past the "one cool idea" that gets any given project rolling off the start line.