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Hellbent

Commission the best mappers?

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I don't know how many people on the dw forums are actually interested in playing the game and seeing new awesome projects. Maybe this is a really dumb idea, but if somehow we could agree on a wad project that would kick ass and then commission the best willing mappers to do it. Because, let's face it, money makes shit happen.

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Creaphis said:

Okay, let's see... I've got thirty-seven cents.

I was gonna say I'd be willing to cough up $5. But it would all depend on the project. I don't have the most popular tastes in doom level design. /end rant before it begins.

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Okay... I got a rusty penny, bottle cap, bubble gum wrapper, and a button. Looks like I'm basically broke. But I'm a musician, so that's understandable :-P

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The best map designers already release awesome wads on a regular basis anyways, so why do you want to pay mappers to work on a project?

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Your desire to pay people who map for the love of mapping to do mapping for you insults and sickens me. I have nothing but deep contempt left for people like that. It reminds me of someone else from a modding scene for an other game who wanted to hire professional programmers and artists to do the modding and hacking work for him. Completely unforgivable.

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I originally opted to write the sarcastic reply instead of the "slap-in-the-face" reply, but now that Hellbent has come back to offer five whole dollars I suppose that the latter will be necessary.

Hellbent, the work that goes into a single top-tier map is worth $1000, at least. Offering someone less than that to map for you - even if they love the work - is insulting, because this deprives them of the time that they could spend working on their own projects, and also deprives them of the sense that their work is being properly appreciated. Being sincerely thanked by someone who knows they could never afford your time feels much better than being paid a pittance by some arse-hole who thinks that's all he owes you.

Jodwin said:

Your desire to pay people who map for the love of mapping to do mapping for you insults and sickens me. I have nothing but deep contempt left for people like that. It reminds me of someone else from a modding scene for an other game who wanted to hire professional programmers and artists to do the modding and hacking work for him. Completely unforgivable.


Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with offering programmers and artists money for their work. Many of them, in fact, seek out arrangements exactly like this (they're called "jobs"). The problem lies in the extreme undervaluation of skilled labour. I get the impression that you feel that modding has to be done only for the sheer joy of it, or that modding is a competition and mods with professional labour behind them have an unfair advantage. I don't think either argument is valid. If modding culture became such that nobody made anything for free anymore, that would be a disaster. But, in this climate, I see nothing wrong with the occasional patron or financier, as long as they understand what work is worth.

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Hellbent said:

ehh.. why?

By paying someone else to make you your maps you're belittling all the effort that each and every mapper before and in the future have put into their works. People here, and everywhere else, are mapping for their love of the game and mapping itself, and paying someone else to do it for you because you're too good for it is a kick to the face for everyone. Bringing money into what is merely a pure hobby for everyone is, simply put, disgusting.


edit:

Creaphis said:

I get the impression that you feel that modding has to be done only for the sheer joy of it

I believe that business should stay business and hobbies should stay hobbies. Keep the two separate. Excuse me for not being a 100 % capitalist swine.

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Creaphis said:

I originally opted to write the sarcastic reply instead of the "slap-in-the-face" reply, but now that Hellbent has come back to offer five whole dollars I suppose that the latter will be necessary.

Hellbent, the work that goes into a single top-tier map is worth $1000, at least. Offering someone less than that to map for you - even if they love the work - is insulting, because this deprives them of the time that they could spend working on their own projects, and also deprives them of the sense that their work is being properly appreciated. Being sincerely thanked by someone who knows they could never afford your time feels much better than being paid a pittance by some arse-hole who thinks that's all he owes you.

[/b]

Hellbent said:

I don't know how many people on the dw forums are actually interested in playing the game

[/b] what I was getting at was if there would be enough people who would be willing to make a small donation to see a particular kind of doom project be made. Maybe there is zero people, maybe 500... I don't know. Obviously one person offering $5 is meaningless. But if 200 people were willing to donate $1-$5 that would be closer to the $1000.

I know if someone offered me money to make a map I'd prolly put a lot more time and patience and work into it. There are a lot of mappers on here who don't finish their projects for whatever reason... a little incentive might help. Obviously the project would have to interest the mappers being commissioned. Anyway.. it was just an idea....

10 sector competition had material incentive and it produced lots of great maps.

Jodwin said:

paying someone else to do it for you because you're too good for it is a kick to the face for everyone.

[/b] Say what? I'm proposing this idea because I am too good for mapping? :confused:

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$1000? are you kidding me? My maps aren't that valuable. Fuck, I'd make you a damn good map for $5. I'm in for this project :)

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PRIMEVAL said:

Okay... I got a rusty penny, bottle cap, bubble gum wrapper, and a button.

fourteen seconds later, the best map ever is created. anyone else's mind started playing macgyver theme?

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Jodwin said:

paying someone else to do it for you because you're too good for it is a kick to the face for everyone.


Usually when someone pays someone else to do something it's because they're not good enough for it.

Jodwin said:
I believe that business should stay business and hobbies should stay hobbies. Keep the two separate. Excuse me for not being a 100 % capitalist swine. [/B]


Extending this logic, when someone has something that they do for fun, and they're offered a chance to do it for a good wage, they should turn it down and continue to make their money by stocking shelves at Wal-mart. People gotta eat, Jodwin, and the only way you can really "beat" capitalism is by earning money doing something you'd do anyway.

Hellbent said:

10 sector competition had material incentive and it produced lots of great maps.


A prize is more about recognition than about money.

40oz said:

$1000? are you kidding me? My maps aren't that valuable. Fuck, I'd make you a damn good map for $5. I'm in for this project :)


I said top-tier ;)

Seriously though, how many hours did you and Jamie put into planning, mapping, gathering/creating assets for, testing and tweaking UAC Ultra?

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Well, I like 40oz. maps and I don't think he was being sarcastic, so, what do you have in mind 40oz? :D The real problem with my proposal, the way I see it, is the lack of consensus we'd be able to arrive at. I don't even know what I would propose. Something with not too many linedefs and sidedefs (ie, let's put time and thought into good gameplay and atmosphere, rather than eye candy). Well made secrets. A nostalgic theme (E1, tee hee) I've always wanted an episode that looked and played like it was made by id (I made a thread about this awhile ago, but I don't know if anyone remembers). There are a lot of e1 style episodes, but none of them are mistakable for id levels.

I don't want another Final Doom, but I see your point.

Anyway, I nominate 40oz :). But only one person paying him is kinda not the point of this exercise. There'd have to be a sizable number of people willing to donate a small amount so that the purse is something substantial.

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40oz said:

$1000? are you kidding me? My maps aren't that valuable. Fuck, I'd make you a damn good map for $5. I'm in for this project :)


Scab! We doom union workers don't work for those wages!

When creating anything digital, I think the economic model works like this:
*)Whatever you make is already available for free (and probably in better quality) somewhere on the internet. So to compete you have to price your creation at 0$, or pay people to take it.
*)Google says, hey thanks for the free content everyone, we'll go ahead and slap ads your stuff. So the only way to make money is to be google or steal from google or start a religion like scientology or facebook.

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I believe that business should stay business and hobbies should stay hobbies. Keep the two separate. Excuse me for not being a 100 % capitalist swine.


Right, it's not like anyone is paying for the bandwidth on Doomworld, or idgames. Ads aren't money either, they're just publicity.

Fighting the good fight against capitalism by posting about it on the Doomworld forums makes about as much sense as treating brain cancer with homeopathy. Doom and the Internet haven't been created by magical tiny fairies, though I suppose it's not fair to blame you for not knowing either of these things as that fairly naive rant of yours would put you somewhere in the 12-14 years old age bracket.

If only my 100% capitalist swine money could pay for something, like Internet access, so only others 100% capitalists swines like me could access the Internet. Alas, these damn commies ruin it for everyone with their WiFi spots made out of chocolate and unicorns.

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After re-reading my post I realized how awfully sell-outish that sounded. Unfortunately, the truth is that Doom is and will always remain a hobby of mine. I've been working on a pretty hefty project all while releasing random doom 2 maps intermittently on the side for fun while people wait. Unfortunately, based on the collective knowledge that I've picked up from playing maps, releasing maps, reading people's reviews, reading reviews of my own maps, I'm actually nearing the peak of my performance level as far as doom editing.

I'm trying to target as many audiences in the Doom community as possible with this project, and I can tell it will be by far my best release yet. I've learned a lot about aligning textures, consistent texture and color themes, creating and editing new textures, detailing, gameplay, layouts and lighting, and I'm kinda attacking my project full force with all this information that I've picked up on.

While making some extra cash for doing this is cool and all, I already have enough motivation to keep making Doom content as it is. Also, it's not going to magically make my usual output of doom content 'better' since I usually put in my best effort anyway, as with many of the doomers in this community. I still don't think that the stuff I make will be much more valuable than a lot of the stuff people have done for free, like Batman TC, Scythe 2, Plutonia 2, Harmony, etc.

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Hellbent said:

does this baby have a tentative release date?


5 bucks say "When it's done"

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I got to say when I saw the $5 offer I couldn't help but chuckle. Yeah, I'd be deeply offended too if someone offered me that.

On a somewhat related note, apparently Doomsday would need in the region of $8,902,371 (and take 162 years!?) to develop: http://www.ohloh.net/p/deng (see Project Cost on right).

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Hellbent said:

does this baby have a tentative release date?


It's way too early in the making to announce.

flubbernugget said:

Why not just pay these mappers with more fun maps? That's what makes this a community and not a business.


Bingo. Thread is over.

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DaniJ said:

I got to say when I saw the $5 offer I couldn't help but chuckle. Yeah, I'd be deeply offended too if someone offered me that.

Except you're missing the point of many people offering that. The point was for it to be affordable and yet if enough people participated, worth it for the mappers. But anyway, the consensus is clear.

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Guest

I have a coupon for 1/2 price dry cleaning that I would gladly contribute if it meant getting my mitts on an awesome new Doom project.

So anyways, instead of paying the best mappers to make great maps, (as the best mappers don't need to get paid to do what they do best), we could always, I dunno, work to create an environment where more people actually want to map. Then more people would turn into great mappers over time, and Voila. More great maps for all of us, and it wouldn't cost us a cent.

Yeah right.

Seriously tho, I would probably consider contributing actual money to this, if I had any. I mean lets face it, there are far worst things that people spend money on than making Doom levels.

As has been mentioned tho, as soon as you give money to people, you have to start setting deadlines and expected returns. If I gave someone $400 to map, how many maps, and of what quality could I expect for that money. What hourly rate would you set in place? How would you quantify it all?

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