Before you watch please note that I correct myself near the beginning of the video.
I didn't word it right and I want to make sure you guys know that if you put effort and thought into your map then I'm not referring to you or your map.

I want to make that clear because the way I'm unhappy with the way I said it in the video!!!


http://youtu.be/1fquZ_I0_2s

Very well said!
I hope people watch this and take it into consideration.

The thing about creativity is that there are a bunch of people who make really awesome wins who like to share those wins with others by giving them their scripts and files. Don't get me wrong here, but I'm glad people are helping others in the community, but a lot of people think they can just slap the ugx mod, or other peoples scripts on their map and instantly think its great.

a lot of people think they can just slap the ugx mod, or other peoples scripts on their map and instantly think its great.

Agree!!

Good Points Grant! I agree with you, for my maps i focus on the mapping side of things, and add detail and everything, then when thats all said and done, i add in weapons/perks from other games. That way i can have a good balance.

I hate to be Mr. Literal, but you need to put some type of effort to do anything, not just mapping. If you didn't you wouldn't even be alive. 

With that said, i have to disagree with some of your points. Personally i think that as long as the design of the map is creative and original(as much as you can make it anyway), its fairly good as-is. Custom content simple sweetens the deal a little more and isn't required. I mean, Berlin Bank was pretty much a stock Asylum styled map with a buyable max ammo and it was pretty popular.

but a lot of people think they can just slap the ugx mod, or other peoples scripts on their map and instantly think its great.

Agreed. Though i think its a bit more than people just slapping on the UGX mod for the custom content, i think they feel pressured by certain people in the community to add it, which they shouldn't. Its their map, if they don't want something(not just UGX mod) in their map they don't have to. Doesn't mean they shouldn't take suggestions from time to time but they should do whatever they feel comfortable with.

P.S. I LOVE the tip for getting inspiration from other games. It really does help making maps more fun to play.

a map dont need too much custom stuff as long as it is fun to play in it, there are maps full of shit but the linear surface just make you get bored, but also a detailed and good looking map deserves prettry stuff, so the maps  which have great looking environments are the maps with best and more custom content. you need both but mapping is can determine what the map will have

I mean, Berlin Bank was pretty much a stock Asylum styled map with a buyable max ammo and it was pretty popular.

I don't think that a map from 2010 is relevant to a current discussion about custom content. In 2010, people were amazed when a map was even released that was playable. The extent of custom weapons was modded weaponFile stats. Maybe a custom map texture here and there if the map was really cool. And if you had ZCT Mod on your map, well then holy shit it's time to download! See what I'm getting at here?

If you released a Berlin Bank today (assuming no one had played it before), it would be one of the most boring releases of 2014 - and this is exactly why it's not a relevant point to make about maps with no custom content being released today in 2014, 4 years later. People rightfully expect more from maps 4 years later because things have greatly advanced over 4 years and help is WAY more readily available than ever before. You pretty much can't even browse a site like this (or ZM, TMG, CustomCoD, etc) without running into some sort of tutorial that would be immensely helpful to a newbie mapper. This topic is a perfect example.

So I think your reasoning is flawed because today custom content is easier to add than ever before. To think that people wouldn't be tired of playing the same maps today that they played in 2010 is simply naive in my opinion. Anyone who doesn't make any attempt at adding more content to their map is simply either lazy or stubborn, because you really can't make an argument that no single piece of custom content (no matter how small) could be added to a map to make it better than it was stock. That's just an arbitrary argument.

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To GrantDaddy007 - excellent video. I feel the same way about the Zombie Sumpf map and agree with your points about creativity and custom content. Maps should definitely follow a theme and be consistent, at least in my books.

Nice vid!


That map looks pretty sweet to! I should give that a try   

I hate to be Mr. Literal, but you need to put some type of effort to do anything, not just mapping. If you didn't you wouldn't even be alive. 

With that said, i have to disagree with some of your points. Personally i think that as long as the design of the map is creative and original(as much as you can make it anyway), its fairly good as-is. Custom content simple sweetens the deal a little more and isn't required.

To some extent that's true but what I'm referring too is kind of what trem said.  There's so much stuff/info out there on custom zombies and mapping that releasing a plain unoriginal map(something that's been done 100 times already) is inexcusable! I'm not saying you have to have some crazy new ideas in the map... Just trying to get people to challenge themselves and put some effort into it BEFORE they release it.

This is exactly how I feel when people release shit maps. If only they considered your three points so we wouldn't get good layouts but shitty detail, great features but crap everything else. Hopefully now we'll see some better maps coming out from now on (like Firestorm  ), or people'll just be douches and release shit maps to consider themselves mappers.