Which FPS games have the biggest mapping communities?

[Patrol1985]

I think these are (in order of the amount of maps produced by communities):

1. Doom
2. Duke Nukem 3D
3. Quake (the first one)

Am I correct in this assumption or have I missed some games with significant amount of additional levels? I know Half-Life games are immensely popular, but I don't know if that translates to the number of level designers.

[geekmarine]

I would say the Source engine in general has a pretty strong mapping community. For example, TF2 has quite a few community-made maps that have become included in the official game. Also, both Half-Life and Half-Life 2 have quite a few user-made levels and episodes created for them. I wouldn't say where to rank it in terms of number produced, but yeah, there's lots of community content out there.

[Technician]

Probably Doom followed by Quake. Half Life has some fantastic maps and mods but by fewer people. Doom really is the most accessible FPS to mod for.

EDIT: Actually it depends. If you want to include all the cinematography and shit, maybe the Source community outnumbers us. But if where talking about the sheer number of maps...

[Zed]

Technician said:

EDIT: Actually it depends. If you want to include all the cinematography and shit, maybe the Source community outnumbers us. But if where talking about the sheer number of maps...

How many wads do you think have been produced in the last 20 years? maybe 40,000-50,000?

[Quast]

The L4D mapping scene seems sizable and talented enough, or at least it was. Pretty consistent quality too that often exceeds official campaigns. But obviously the time taken to create a good set of maps for a modern game is going to take a lot longer than it will for doom. That fact alone will simply skew raw numbers among other things.

[Catoptromancy]

http://ws.q3df.org/

[Coopersville]

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

[reality 2.0]

well, you can rearrange the definition of modding say maps only or base it off cinematography and get many different lists. Personally, if we were to say modding in general, doom would be the king. we have 20 years worth of mods and maps. the zdoom engine is very advanced and flexible. With multiple scripting languages the zdoom engine utilizes, you can make games that feel like their modern save for the graphics. Hell, the zdoom engine is more flexible, moddable, and easier for newbies to grasp than the source engine is or ever will be.

[Koko Ricky]

Maybe I'm cynical, but I'd be amused to know which ones had the least user-made content. I'm pretty sure the list would be something like

Super 3D Noah's Ark
H.U.R.L.
Operation Body Count
Chasm: The Rift

[Clonehunter]

GoatLord said:

Chasm: The Rift

And it was even packaged with a level editor! Irony, perhaps?

[CorSair]

Coopersville said:

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

This is new to me. Just how much stuff there is?

[Ledillman]

I do believe that Doom has the biggest mapping communities, but Quake or L4D2 may be next to it.

[Phobus]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned UT2004 yet, as that is pretty notable for user made content. Hell, even I've made something for it!

[MFG38]

Patrol1985 said:

1. Doom
2. Duke Nukem 3D
3. Quake (the first one)

That might not actually be too far off. Obviously Doom is the definite #1, but I haven't checked out Duke3D or Quake map repositories enough to know which one would be before the other.

[geo]

Doom
TF2
Elder Scrolls (magic is shooting right?)
Quake

SourceEngine has so many modders they eventually release full games that feel very old.

TF2 having beta maps is a fucking joke though. There are so many full and completed maps that are awesome, so they put the most glitchy incomplete ones in.

[Jodwin]

Zed said:

How many wads do you think have been produced in the last 20 years? maybe 40,000-50,000?

That is a mighty meaningless number, considering that each wad containing maps can have up to 32 in vanilla, and even more with ports.

[Phml]

If only science could help us guess what to expect based on previous data, like looking at the averages with a sufficiently large sample size and deduct trends from the results. Someone should get on this, stat.

[Clonehunter]

CorSair said:

This is new to me. Just how much stuff there is?

There's actually quite a bit. JK-Hub and Massassi both have impressive libraries. Also, as Dark Forces editors get better, that game could see a possible resurgence too, or at least better quality maps.

Jedi Outcast and Academy also have a plethora of levels and multiplayer skins, among hundreds of other changes and enhancements. However, most of those mapping communities focused on multiplayer maps, and both are for the most part dead.

And continuing with Star Wars, Battlefront/II both had/have some big modding communities. Tons of maps, although the good ones are sorta drowned in shit. They're also slightly alive still, unlike Outcast/Academy.

[geekmarine]

Speaking of Jedi Knight, I wish they could release the source code or whatever. I'd love to see a modern port of the game, because I love it but it's an incredible pain in the ass to get to work on modern systems.

[geo]

Unreal, but they get paid.

[joe-ilya]

Doom II

[Maes]

I wouldn't be surprised if "Doom", used as an umbrella term for source ports etc., has still The biggest mapping community in absolute numbers of mappers actually producing usable maps for it. It helps that Doom mapping and texturing is literally an order of magnitude (thanks to the 2D layout) easier than becoming a part-time 3D artist, which is more or less a prerequisite with any modern FPS enging.

[Jodwin]

Phml said:

If only science could help us guess what to expect based on previous data, like looking at the averages with a sufficiently large sample size and deduct trends from the results. Someone should get on this, stat.

Well, it wouldn't be too difficult for someone to create a script that goes through all zips submitted to idgames and then looks into the .wad-files and counts all level entries. Of course it would probably give a slightly too big value because it would include shareware wads and some wads might have duplicate levels for whatever reason (Deus Vult?). It, obviously, wouldn't include any levels that also hadn't been submitted to idgames (mostly ZDoom and related levels), but counting all Doom levels ever created would be impossible anyway.

[Breezeep]

What about Team fortress 2 and the half life series?

[Tuxlar]

Does Minecraft count?

[Soundblock]

Tuxlar said:

Does Minecraft count?

Good question.

[Archi]

It is not FPS.

[Clonehunter]

TF2 has a ton of maps. No idea about the Half Life games, though, other than things like Black mesa.

Archi said:

It is not FPS.

Well, what measure is an FPS? As far as I know the game is in the first person and you can shoot bows and arrows and use swords and shit as weapons.

[Maes]

Clonehunter said:

Well, what measure is an FPS? As far as I know the game is in the first person and you can shoot bows and arrows and use swords and shit as weapons.

And yet, even Fallout 3 is not universally considered a FPS despite looking every bit like one...basically, if the main game mode doesn't entail just shooting shit, then it's not considered a FPS, but another kind of game which also happens to have a first-person visual.

This has been discussed on DW before, too, even bringing driving and flight simulators into the debate.

[Zed]

Tuxlar said:

Does Minecraft count?

Also, without getting into what others have said, I think Minecraft mods are slightly different from Doom mods. I mean, Minecraft is about creating worlds, while in Doom it's about modding the world where you play. I really haven't played Minecraft that much, but it seems that the sole purpose of the game means that mods created for both differ, at least slightly, in what they offer, right?

EDIT: Now that I read my post, it doesn't make a lot of sense. What I mean is that in Minecraft, being a sandbox game, you have more freedom to create your own content, because that's the whole point. In Doom and other FPS games, you create content based on what is already availabe, which seems to impose certain limits on what you can create.