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scifista42

Perception of quality

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During the years I've been playing Doom and trying to make maps, I think I've become A LOT better at spotting what makes bad design choices, and being able to consider and analyze them and perhaps also propose improvements. However, I don't feel any vast improvement in my own mapping skills. When it comes to the actual creation, I find it hard to utilize this my experience. Looking at and examining my own map isn't that easy for me, too. But my problem is even that I'm just unable to craft out the "good" from scratch with an ease.

How is it with your *evolution* of your skill to distinguish good and not-so-good designs, and your ability to actually create better maps (sprites, scripts, whatever)?


(Side note, and not really what I wanted to discuss: Neither I feel I've become a significantly better player in past couple of years, even after thousands of hours spent playing and getting completely familiarized with details about game mechanics. I still make fatal mistakes (leading to my death) every now and then.)

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Detail, while impressive, doesn't really contribute to good design choices in my book. Use of colors, basic graphic design knowledge, and the layout tend to be what makes a map good or bad. Also, depending on what the author was going for, architecture can make a map good so long as it doesn't interfere with gameplay. Unless of course the map is made to be a piece of artwork rather than something to play. It would be interesting to see what people would make if gameplay had no bearing and all we were to do was make our most impressive art map.

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It's the rough architecture of the whole map, and how it interconnects which is the quality giving factor, imo. I think Gusta is a prime example of this.

I guess I have always compared my own work with work of others that I really admire. Howcome their maps are so much better than mine? Personally I feel that I have had a vast improvement in my mapping skills the past couple of years (or 3 or 4), but the thing is; I have really fallen into a deep pit of my own mapping style, and I cant for the sake of my life get out. No matter how hard I try I always end up using the same "tricks", "things", style, whatever, and that kind of annoys me a little.

I guess after making so many maps, and playtesting them all and testing if traps and other tricks work, I have gained at least some skill in knowing what works and not. I often play maps and think: "why the fuck did the author do it that way instead of "my" way? And why the fuck didnt he put a block monster line there?" etcetera. But at the same time, almost as often, I think "Fuck why didnt I think of that?" blabla.

Im not even sure if Im replying to the question here :P

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Of course being able to tell that you like or dislike some design/gameplay choices and being able to create design/gameplay you like (yeah, I really don't want to use the words good/bad/quality) are two totally different things. For the former you kind of don't have to be a mapper at all, just a player who thinks a little about what he sees on the screen. For the latter you need to have good imagination, the ability to decently transform ideas into WAD format and to say "Yes, I've spent like 10 hours on this but I don't like it so I need to delete it", etc. Totally different things.

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Another important factor: Even if you don't like something you've made, doesn't mean other people won't like it. So my advice would be to show it off even if you're not happy with it and see what people say.

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scifista42 said:

During the years I've been playing Doom and trying to make maps, I think I've become A LOT better at spotting what makes bad design choices

Me too, I've improved SOOOO much. Check out these screenshots of my maps as proof:

2005: screenshot
2013: screenshot

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Theres also the "feel" that some maps are intended to provide. A lone linear map can feel bland on its own, but near the end of an episode, it will feel like a grueling final challenge.

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I've never been that good at creating maps, but I've definitely improved since I started as a young DOOMER at 14. The gameplay has always been the most important factor to me though.

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