Situational Motivation?

There are 2 kinds of maps you usually make:

- Maps for yourself (single map, part of your own project, personal megawad, standalone map sets ect).

- Maps for a someone else (community megawad submission, project submission, birthday/gift wad ect).

Just recently I have noticed the backlog of unfinished maps I have in my Doom folder, most of them were standalone maps (maps for myself).

I have noticed how I will crack down and work as hard as I can to finish a map for a community project (map for someone else), send it off to them and await feedback so I can get back to working on it for them.

However, when I map for myself I find that I just can't keep motivated and usually leave the map to turn into some form of vaporware (only for it to emerge finished months later after some lazy 50 different 10 minute sessions or something).

Why is this? Is it because others are depending on this map being finished? Does this happen to anybody else?

(It may be that nobody cares about the next mrthejoshmon map release until it happens. This is also probably a good reason why I give up for so long on single maps I guess)

If you think you are better motivated when you're relied upon by others you could recreate this in your solo work to some degree by announcing the project and posting updates periodically.

purist said:

If you think you are better motivated when you're relied upon by others you could recreate this in your solo work to some degree by announcing the project and posting updates periodically.

That seems like a good idea actually.

Thanks.

*Sigh* I can totally relate. :( Before, in a stroke of genius, I accidentally deleted every single one of my 3,000+ wads, I had almost 100 unfinished levels.

I've never made maps for myself. I need an idea, a goal, a reason to map something. that way I maintain motivation and push myself to be creative. thats why I'm signing up on things like mayhem and DMP series, to keep my ideas floating.

Situational motivation doesn't apply to me. I'm the same likely to find motivation and enthusiasm to make a map for myself or for a community project, and I'm the same likely to lost the motivation and enthusiasm either. Plus there's the mapper's block. Believe me or not, I can confirm that mapper's block can be unrelated to motivation. I often want to map (having motivation), try, fail to be satisfied with the result, and quit - and it repeats over and over and really bugs me. Again, this happens to me regardless on the map's cause or purpose.

Well okay, there's only a difference between announced and unannounced maps - I simply feel worse for failing/delaying/abandoning maps which people knew I was working on. It doesn't matter whether it was for a CP or spontaneous mapping.

I'm a lazy fuck. I hate to work.

What I like is getting results. That's my motivation for working. Admittedly, it's not always enough.

Mapping for myself is essentially what is taking me so long to make UAC Ultra 2. I really want to use it as an opportunity to map by my own rules and construct an original design philosiphy far apart from anything I've already played, but testing it over and over again trying to find a middle ground between new and interesting, vs. weird and bad gets exhausting and isn't as exciting in the long run. So even after its complete (or close enough), I might need a break from it for a few months so I can look at it from a refreshed perspective.

I'm a bit skittish about getting a playtester because I'd need someone who I could exchange a similar interest with, but at the same time not create a hugbox where everything I make is gold just because it exists.

I think my SP and Coop mapping days are virtually over, for the exact reason you stated, mrthejoshmon - loss of motivation. There are plenty of others making excellent SP and Coop wads out there, more so than the number of people making good-but-OS deathmatch levels.

Deathmatch is my favorite gamemode, coupled with the maps taking less time make so that they play well and look good, I just cant bring myself to finish SP stuff these days. Plus, I have a good little network of Doomers who are also DM fiends and are always willing to try new turf.

@40oz - I'm lucky that myself and DG93 are not afraid to criticise eachother's maps, as the result is always something much better. It's good to have someone who gives honest, non harsh, but practical feedback. That's harder to find than many people relize.

EDIT: None of you deathmatch enough. irc.quakenet.org, channel #dmstuff, or just one of the other main IRC Doomin' channels. I'm in all of those fuckers, come challenge me or better yet, make some DM maps with me!

While I don't have the experience of working on maps for a project, I have the same problem when working on my own maps. In fact I've never released one, despite having started on one numerous times. I currently have an unfinished map that I felt very good about (for a first map) up to a certain point, and now I'm not sure what to do with it. I feel like I lost direction on it, as well as the extreme lack of motivation to do anything.

I need a kick in the ass, but I live alone so I can get away with being as lazy as I want.

What you describe is real. For example, the 10 step program is built upon external (social) pressure, or motivation. Failing yourself is easy, failing others is harder.