Collaborating

I'd be interested in reading accounts of how you collaborated with other people on individual maps (preferably), or on mapsets. Who did what, what was planned and what eventually happened, etc. It might be something I decide to try at some point.

As a single example, danne and I had a pretty raucously good collaboration strat for Italo-Doom (say what you will about the maps, but they were a blast for us to make and test :p). Basically we exchanged each map only twice:

1) Author A: Constructs base idea of map, overall structure, texture theme, etc. When they get bored with it they pass it off to...
2) Author B: Do some of the tedious stuff that author A didn't want to do, detailing, flesh out areas, add some new areas. Then give it back to...
3) Author A: Finalize balance (e.g. not enough archviles), add remaining details (e.g. not enough lighting gradients), etc..

An example:



The advantage of this was that every map had a flavor of each author, and the "original" author gets the final say in the final tuning and balancing (including possibly reverting and altering disagreeable changes). Frequent back-and-forth with lots of small-scale maps also meant that there were plenty of different maps in varying stages of development to work on at any point in time. And with roughly 50% of the maps starting with A/B, each author got their fair share of each step in the process.

Nice. Goes to show that teamwork is the key to success!

That sounds a lot like how Super Jamie and I worked on UAC Ultra. Work on a map until you get bored, pass it over. rinse/repeat.

Of course it's very important that you communicate often and agree on a lot of the same principles. I'm sure Ribbiks and Danne discuss mapping a lot and are in agreement with what makes a good map.

Super Jamie and I talked a lot via PMs about what kinds of maps we like and recommended wads to each other a lot before we officially decided to work on a project together. We both considered the same principles of level design to be extremely important and he was better at some things like coordinating gameplay and technical boom stuff than I was and I was better at detailing and making layouts fast, so it was a pretty balanced work-flow and made progress fast, and eventually resulted in a pretty cool wad.

So I'd say the most important part of collaborating is genuinely liking the person you are working with and finding someone who cares about the same things in level design as you do. Find someone who's maps you like and ask them a bit about what maps they like, and what they know about mapping that you don't, you guys can learn a little from each other and if you have time for it, you can work on a project together.

I think it is mainly about liking the person and being a good (open-minded and somewhat skilled at communication) person yourself. The actual mapping skills and preferences are kinda secondary I guess. As long as both partners are enjoying themselves, they'll probably figure something out.

Would anyone be interested in taking this and doing something to it?

http://www.mediafire.com/download/t2a500m3s518udx/somethingnew.wad



The only thing that I don't want changed are the computer and cement textures... because I put a lot of effort into them.

If you like what you see at all, feel free to modify it... but call dibs so there aren't a bunch of people working on the same map.