So why aren't you mapping?

yakfak said:

I'm more impressed by the one-man-doom blog, which reviews every level in a set even should they not be hyped and/or unique.

kmxexii stands in a class of his own. Very few reviewers go the extra mile to give any WAD a fair chance (doing which echoes your earlier post in this thread). Many /newstuff reviews are shallow and overly negative in comparison. And pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but most of comments on the /idgames db frontend are little more than tabloid front-page blurbs. Unfortunately, they are fairly representative of the commoonity.
Not that there's anything wrong with that ... :P

I have not mapped since i posted the map03 preview screenshot on delusions of eternity... I botched up a big part of a map for that wad and i just lost the entire need to map for a while. Knowing myself... i might just start up again after posting this, lol.

So to answer the thread more directly ;
whenever i do not map, i do not have one thought telling me to map. a weird loss of total interest for short periods.

I'm not mapping because it's too much work for too little reward. All I get is recognition from the Doom community. It's not like it can help me get hired. I also can't impress anyone else if I tell them I make Doom maps.

Nowadays I mostly Doom by doing programming about it (such as AutoDoom, the single-player vanilla-demo-compatible Eternity bot).

I still have a megawad project I work on, but the number of levels is still 3 (only one completed). E1M2 is already very complex (vertical and shit, yet limited to MBF's rules) so it advances very slowly. I'd love if I can leave the mapping to the community, while I keep maintaining the DEH and doing quality control.

printz said:

I'm not mapping because it's too much work for too little reward. All I get is recognition from the Doom community. It's not like it can help me get hired.

Yeah, I honestly feel this way sometimes too, especially lately. I pretty much wanna be done with making large and maybe even medium sized levels, I can't do that shit anymore, eats up way too much time, and usually ends up being worse for being longer. Small speedmaps or bust! Once I finish up my Heretic episode I'm done with working on multimap solo stuff too, I feel like it's time to move on to bigger things. I'd like to make my own game at some point!

I could never map primarily for praise or recognition.

What I get out of mapping, when I remember to avoid tedious over-detailing, is two-fold: 1) immersion in an artistic-slash-analytical task, where time passes quickly and I enjoy myself; 2) a semi-regular feeling of "Nice, I did that!"

I also enjoy studying good maps. I love learning. I like analyzing subtle details of execution (using "details" in the general sense, not the Doom-specific sense) and being able to say, "Oh, so that's one of the reasons this plays well / looks good"; I could write essays on that stuff.

If I end up making maps that other people like, then cool, I guess that might have a bit of value. But nearly all of the "reward" is in the process itself. Honestly, I don't think anyone should map if this isn't the case for them. The same is true of composing, of writing fiction, of whatever else. (Unless you are getting paid a lot.)

I've spent my share of time on the internet and have received my share of praise, have occasionally been showered in it. I'm over it. It has lost its ability to motivate me.

I never really stop mapping. There's slow times, where a month or two can go by without me even opening DB, then for a week or two I'll go nuts and have 2 or 3 decent maps completed.

This is how it's been since I started mapping many moons ago. Too much, I get burned out and start making crap. Not enough, and I lose inspiration.

I don't really understand the "praise and recognition/reward" approach. I map because I'm enjoying the process of mapping. Yes sometimes it can be frustrated, especially after you bust your ass to get it done and then people don't really digging it but I don't know, it's just fun to create your own things.

I'm at a concert listening to the 'junior woodwind' from the local area. Their performance is absolutely terrible. I don't mean just ragged around the edges, but stop-up-your-ears out of tune.

So I'm wondering, why are they performing at all, and why does everyone clap? Why doesn't someone quietly take them to one side and tell them that they suck? The answer is that most people do need encouragement (or praise and recognition as you put it) to make them persevere with a hobby.

Some people also need encouragement to help them deal with anxiety\depression\etc. You feel like a worthless sack of shit all day but then you come home, go on the internet and see that someone praised your latest pic on DeviantArt or whatever. That can actually mean a lot sometimes.

Not enough inspiration and not enjoying it, and too damn busy with RL stuff these days.

SFoZ911 said:

I don't really understand the "praise and recognition/reward" approach. I map because I'm enjoying the process of mapping. Yes sometimes it can be frustrated, especially after you bust your ass to get it done and then people don't really digging it but I don't know, it's just fun to create your own things.

This.

Memfis said:

Some people also need encouragement to help them deal with anxiety\depression\etc. You feel like a worthless sack of shit all day but then you come home, go on the internet and see that someone praised your latest pic on DeviantArt or whatever. That can actually mean a lot sometimes.

Well said Memfis.

cs99cjb said:

The answer is that most people do need encouragement (or praise and recognition as you put it) to make them persevere with a hobby.

With a hobby they don't truly enjoy for its own merits.

Memfis said:

Some people also need encouragement to help them deal with anxiety\depression\etc. You feel like a worthless sack of shit all day but then you come home, go on the internet and see that someone praised your latest pic on DeviantArt or whatever. That can actually mean a lot sometimes.

I'm familiar with this. I'd always feel even worse afterward for whoring myself out for approval.

rdwpa said:

I'm familiar with this. I'd always feel even worse afterward for whoring myself out for approval.

I don't understand this at all. Another of my hobbies is drawing. If I don't feel like sharing my ideas with the world then I don't bother drawing anything. Why should I? I already have pictures in my head of whatever I want. For me, it's the same with Doom maps: they are mainly a way of communicating ideas. Whoring has nothing to do with it.

edit.

rdwpa said:

nearly all of the "reward" is in the process itself.

SFoZ911 said:

I map because I'm enjoying the process of mapping. it's just fun to create your own things.

Same for me. :)

By the way (since somebody scratched the surface of the topic of "false encouragement"), I really think that any lying / misinforming is very wrong regardless on the motivation, and I particularly hate that some people might think that such a behaviour is acceptable or even good if the purpose is to "help" the other person they're misinforming, or make him happy or something "noble" (ugh). My reasoning is that by lying / misinforming people, you rob them of an ability to make their own (future) decisions based on true facts. You can't predict distant future, nor you have power over other people's lives, and that's why you shouldn't lie. I believe that truth is an inherently good value, I mean truth itself, not an impression of truth. I've simplified these reasonings here, but it's a base of my deep conviction that any kind of lying is just wrong. Maybe with an exception of lying to obviously evil terrorists who threaten to harm people, because these have actively shown that they don't deserve respectful treatment, like really totally not.

cs99cjb said:

I don't understand this at all. Another of my hobbies is drawing. If I don't feel like sharing my ideas with the world then I don't bother drawing anything. Why should I? I already have pictures in my head of whatever I want.

You don't enjoy the act of drawing itself? Or being able to look at something you drew and think, Cool, I drew that!?

cs99cjb said:

I already have pictures in my head of whatever I want.

Either your drawings are unambitious or you are a world-class artist, capable of picturing amazing things and reproducing them perfectly.

Anyway, I think that "sharing" can work as a secondary source of motivation, but as a primary one it seems shaky to me.

rdwpa said:

Either your drawings are unambitious or you are a world-class artist, capable of picturing amazing things and reproducing them perfectly.

Yes, I am capable of picturing amazing things. So are you! It's called imagination. Everyone has one.

I don't really understand your dichotomy and this thread isn't about me, or drawing, but I think you'll agree that I'm not a world-class artist: http://i.imgur.com/HKvASIH.jpg?1

To say people who crave some form of recognition for their work don't "enjoy mapping for its own merits" is kind of unfair. The ID boys did it both from passions AND a desire to make money. That doesn't somehow "undermine" their maps - Same goes for people who would like some positive feedback here and there.

I love the process of mapping itself, but I'm not going to pretend the feedback/praise/what have you doesn't help. I don't create deathmatch maps for myself to sit back and think "gee, this place is awesome", I create them for others to enjoy and so I post them all over the place. It doesn't mean I'm "whoring" my work, or if it does, everyone should whore their stuff - It exists to be enjoyed, so let it fufill it's potential!

One man's way of enjoying a hobby is not any more valuable than another man's way.

Now ive made maps for both reasons so ive seen both sides of the coin. As far as I'm concerned, I'm very easy to please with something like doom. So naturally the maps ive made for myself use the default db2 startan wall textures with zigzag tan floor and wood panel ceilings, have damn near no detailing or height variation, rarely feature more than 3 rooms, or even an exit. They're usually just to test a theory or an idea to see if something is fun or plausible to make in doom.

They don't follow any rules. Why make an exit when I can just quit out of the game when I feel ive finished the map? Who cares if the textures are misaligned if it looks like a space station in my imagination? What do I need secrets for if I have to create them and then pretend to find them? Why does my map need health or ammo items if I can just put in cheat codes? Do I have to fairly judge myself on these types of things?

When you map exclusively for yourself and your own enjoyment, then you have no reason to share it on the internet, or have outside playtesters find bugs for you, or do half the stuff you're supposed to do in doom like include difficulty settings or "balanced gameplay" Do you really have to map fairly for your own entertainment?

I can't really see the justification of creating anything that even competes with something like wow.wad if you are your own audience. Half the shit you can do in doom is a waste of time because its part of creating a world designed to be played with by someone other than its creator. And naturally something created entirely for yourself would be nonsensical and unfair to anyone else because its not tailored to accommodate someone else's interpretations.

I believe the existence of the doom community I founded on the fact that someone said to someone else "hey look what I can do in doom :)" or that they wanted to have the freedom to control another players fate by creating their world. So you can't really say that mapping shouldn't be done without a sort of outside motivation. I think many people have done it because they've played other peoples maps and had fun with it, so they work to create good maps as a way of returning the favor, in hopes that someone may enjoy doom by playing through their maps as much as they did playing someone else's.

Doomkid said:

To say people who crave some form of recognition for their work don't "enjoy mapping for its own merits" is kind of unfair.

I'm saying this of people who won't work at all if they don't expect to get praise/recognition, of people who map primarily for the praise/recognition -- not because they enjoy the activity itself. If you enjoy mapping, and want "recognition for your work" on top of that, that's fine.

My reply to Memfis was intended in that context too, since it wasn't clear.

I currently don't map anymore for a multitude of reasons:

1) My life is too busy. I just don't have the time anymore to sit on my ass and construct maps.

2) I suck at making single player/co-op maps.

3) Most of the maps I make (which are predominately for FFA) are often unnoticed/ disliked by the people in the community.

4) I'm a slow mapper. It takes me a very long time to construct something unique. I get mappers' block and often make maps that look too symmetrical which ultimately get discarded out of frustration.

5) Idk. I'm not even that active anymore in the Doom community.

I have been working on a map for a some while but since this is my first modding project and I will not let that affect my standards (which are very high) it is taking a very long time to make. I get stuck really often and most of my time working on it is spent blankly staring at the editor because I'm stuck.

When I play maps I "know" and "feel" how they work but I fail to apply the same principles on my own. Lately, Threshold of Pain has been an inspiration for me and Scythe 2 has always been a benchmark.

It's a very big map and I am making progress. The parts that are done look great but I get stuck designing even easy sections. Most of my new sections start out being a big box room. I struggle to make my layouts more interesting but I am really trying. When I am trying to make something with elevation my brain just shuts down.

>So why aren't you mapping?

Because mapping feels boring and pointless, when one can't come up with an idea new and interesting enough (on the 'gameplay' perspective) to be worth the time to be spent. Mapping for the sake of 'muh art', in the Doom engine, feels like a waste of time.

Personally I am occupied a lot of the time by university, but even then I find that, though I can come up with decent small concepts, I can't make them into anything cohesive. If I do try to continue onwards I usually decide against releasing them as I find the quality to be lacking. Given this I suppose that even if I was currently mapping, I doubt there would be a great deal of difference.

I'm not mapping (much) because inspiration is lacking currently. I've made stuff I'm really proud of thanks to being struck by passion. I'm not feeling that passion currently, so I feel like whatever I make won't be as good as the maps I produced when my heart was really in it.

I'm not actually "producing" currently because every time I open up Doom Builder and draw a few lines/move some sectors around, I'm unhappy with the results.

Speaking personally:

I'm usually busy finishing up my programming diploma, and programming work this summer will probably take up just as much of my time.

That said, I do map out concepts every few weeks, but never anything I'd feel comfortable sharing.

Memfis said:

Some people also need encouragement to help them deal with anxiety\depression\etc. You feel like a worthless sack of shit all day but then you come home, go on the internet and see that someone praised your latest pic on DeviantArt or whatever. That can actually mean a lot sometimes.

I run into this situation a lot. I post some kind of creative work on social channels and the lack of response tends to put me down and not motivate me. It's only when somebody comes up to me and mentions they want to see more of my work I decide to put the effort into it.

I have an album to finish and a sister album to go with it that needs love. The story for it needs much polishing but I don't have much motivation to physically work on it. I have three games I want to produce but right now atm they're just text concepts and a bunch of doodles.

Never_Again said:

And pardon me for pointing out the obvious, but most of comments on the /idgames db frontend are little more than tabloid front-page blurbs. Unfortunately, they are fairly representative of the commoonity.
Not that there's anything wrong with that ... :P

The problem is that there's a limit on characters, sometimes I go on a huge rant about all the things I love about a wad, only for the thing to say I'm 98 characters above the limit, etc.

OT: Mapping, but not for RoD, for Heretic. :>