After pondering this for a while I thought I'd start a discussion here. If the mods / admins feel that this is the wrong place to post it then move it to general quakeworld discussion.

What are the key things that make a map good? Is it item placing, flow or that little bit of something that you can't describe? What makes a map so good that it's played for 10+ years and people still play it?

Share your thoughts!

a mix of all that I think... and also:
+ geometries (good balanced rooms, not too large or too small, for example)
- textures (I can't see them anyway (gl_max_size), so appearantly this has nothing to do with why I still play tb3 after 10 years)

Agree with bps there on both points. I use gl_max_size 1 as well, so i don't care about textures.
- What I really, really hate is maps where you can "die by falling outside the map", like on skull for example.
- Too many ramps / planned trickjumps. It also bothers me when maps (like skull, again) use too many ramps and little "planned trickjumps". All these "oh look, if you're good, then you can jump from here to here and here to here" are annoying.

Falzzi:

My main disturbance with maps are the braindeadism that it tends to adapt as soon as the author takes a little too much liberty: Ammo heaven.
Basically, all the ztn-maps are examples of what I think map authors should try to avoid as much as possible, a low ammo count is important for me to enjoy the game.

soma:

Regarding maps "requiring" tricks, how do you feel about:

Aerowalk RA requiring a rocketjump or a fast speedrun.
Vdm3v3 RA requiring a skilled rampjump or a safe rampjump (slower).

If you never saw vdm3v3, just go to any server and peek at the RA-place if you like, I'm curious just how far this limit goes

vdm3v3's rampjumps are incredibly annoying. Those things are fun when you run around on the map alone but highly frustrating in a duel (well, for me as a super-rookie at least). I agree with soma except for the looks.
A map should have proper lighting and at least decent texturing.

What texture theme that is used doesn't matter that much, but how the textures are placed surely does if it wants a higher "ranking".

I think first of all, you should determine what kind of map we're supposed to talk about. An ffa map would be different then a dual map. So just saying that ztn-type of design should be avoided doesn't make any sense. There's a reason ppl still LOVE to play these maps on servers like xs4all.

And nobody mentioned one of the most important things yet: good connectivity between rooms so that there's lot's of chance players will run into eachother = action. You should be able to get somewhere in different ways. Walking through long corridors/hallways to finally get to another room is boring.

Also: dead ends is generally very bad, except when you do it smart, like in DM4, you may get the MH, but you'll need to get out of that room too... so you pay a price for getting the MH. But still I wouldn't put dead ends in an ffa map.

There's lot's of stuff written about mapping and I don't think you'll find much info here at quakeworld.nu. You need to search for stuff on designer-oriented websites and ofcourse, study popular maps.

You could also read map reviews at: http://lvlworld.com/
It's Q3 orientated, but it applies on QW just the same.

Things discussed in reviews are things like:
- connectivity
- flow
- architecture
- item/weapon placement
- lightning
and probably more that I don't remember

Textures can also be used to give subtle hints for finding secret items, espcially in SP maps. Ofcourse, if you've learned the map outside your head, you won't need the hint anymore, but generally mappers and map-reviewers will agree that texture placement can make or break a map. The looks of it matters to lot's of people. Some don't care, but most people probably do care.

There was a time when I wanted to be a mapper but I dropped it. I sometimes think about picking it up again... I had lot's of leveldesign documents... even printed them out, but I think I lost them by now.

Oh I almost forgot:

Here's a website from Aardappel who made some maps inspired by id maps. Anyway, almost at the bottom of his page, you'll find a section called 'Maps From Hell', which is good for a laugh: http://strlen.com/maps/index.html

Basicly, it showcases bad maps with a funny story of why it's a bad map

Check out Lunaran's Deathmatch Encyclopedia (scroll a little downwards):
http://www.lunaran.com/page.php?id=9

lo

i can make a map, thats not the problem, the item placing is my biggest problem even after yrs of making maps, so i ask good players to help me out with the items, i dont think head-shot would of been as popular as it is, if it wasnt for buffy,iced,fucu and baines help

if anyone was wondering why in head-shot you have ya+lg that was buffy's idea it was my idea to have mh and quad also in that room, head-shot plays alot better thanks to the help with item placing i got and is hardly ever next_mapped on ffa