Mapping School Curriculum?

[StoneFrog]

Herculine said:

It does make one stop to think about the people who have indeed gone to school and now get paid to make video games for people like us to buy and play. I've also done mods for Oblivion and Fallout 3, and I often feel like I have the talent to do such things for a living if only my lot in life had been different and I had studied such things.

Same here - although it certainly wouldn't be necessary. Most of the current developers in the gaming industry, from Bethesda and Valve, came from a wide spectra of educational backgrounds - programming, writing, engineering, etc. I believe Dario Casali was studying economics at the time when Valve hired him?

It certainly makes me feel better about pursuing some crappy liberal arts degree and still having options open, although I do think that Doom, at its core, is ideal for studying the theory of gameplay. As ler touched upon, part of the charm in vanilla Doom mapping is relying on tricks and ingenuity to make the most out of your limited selection of triggers and enemies. Of course, within the context of more modern shooters, Doom weapons and enemies still pretty diverse and fun to work with.

[Hellbent]

My academic approach to Doom 1 --an analysis of id's level designing in episodes 1 through 3. clicky the linky

[gggmork]

If I was a professor at a university, I'd do what all the other professors do; wheel in a tv, put on an episode of bill nye the science guy, then withdraw into some hidden handheld entertainment system under the desk collecting tenure while the armed students, bullies and future walmart workers naturally sort themselves into their various pecking orders.

[duvel]

Er, I thought that was middle school science teachers. I sure hope my professors are going to do some of the shit they're paid to do.

[Herculine]

With the help of a fine example from Xaser, I've recently learned how to use MAPINFO to string together individual maps into playable episodes. Currently I'm studying the Master Levels as well as all other maps by those authors, and the Blind Alley series by Gene Bird.

If you could put together an episode of any number of levels as an example to mapping students, but could only use other people's work, what would be in the episode?

[The_MártonJános]

I dunno, I feel quite an illegality about using another one's beautiful and copyrighted maps ripped from successful WADs. But for teaching, this must be a good aim of "reuse".

[Herculine]

Cell said:

I dunno, I feel quite an illegality about using another one's beautiful and copyrighted maps ripped from successful WADs. But for teaching, this must be a good aim of "reuse".

I didn't mean copy a bunch of maps and upload them...

...I'm just sayin' I'm trying to learn how to make maps that people won't call: "typical newb-ish map with quantity over quality and mechanical copy-pasted detailing over sense", or: "basically a collections of rectangular rooms (with stuff inside them) connected in a seemingly random fashion". I'm just trying to figure out what makes a good map and am looking for examples of such. I'm not trying to copy anyone's work.

[The_MártonJános]

Herculine said:

I didn't mean copy a bunch of maps and upload them...

...I'm just sayin' I'm trying to learn how to make maps that people won't call: "typical newb-ish map with quantity over quality and mechanical copy-pasted detailing over sense", or: "basically a collections of rectangular rooms (with stuff inside them) connected in a seemingly random fashion". I'm just trying to figure out what makes a good map and am looking for examples of such. I'm not trying to copy anyone's work.

Now I got it. So, they're just for setting an example.
What makes a good map? The top 10 wad authors may know the perfect answer.

[Reaper978]

Eponasoft said:

Modern game design has very little to do with actual gaming and almost everything to do with pleasing a marketing department.

The same could be said about anything.

It's worth stating that spending your life catering to a "market" is to spend it as a parasite. It's ultimately destructive, and no one benefits from it. It is a baseless assumption that our lives must revolve around money. It's all complete bullshit. In such a system, there is no reason to exist.

[Herculine]

Reaper978 said:

The same could be said about anything.

It's worth stating that spending your life catering to a "market" is to spend it as a parasite. It's ultimately destructive, and no one benefits from it. It is a baseless assumption that our lives must revolve around money. It's all complete bullshit. In such a system, there is no reason to exist.

I think this is exactly why communities like this are so good. We don't design our maps to sell, we do it because we like it and want other people who like the same to enjoy them. When our peers don't accept our work, we seek ways to improve our work, just as I am now.

[Reaper978]

Herculine said:

I think this is exactly why communities like this are so good. We don't design our maps to sell, we do it because we like it and want other people who like the same to enjoy them. When our peers don't accept our work, we seek ways to improve our work, just as I am now.

Indeed, it's always interesting to take a look at online mapping\modding communities for games, as well as all open source projects like Linux. The results are always from an honest desire to produce something of high quality.